Today I attended a briefing with oneworld’s new CEO, Senior Vice President Nathaniel Pieper. Nathaniel comes from a long background in aviation with his last job being CEO at Alaska Airlines. He has spent 27 years in the industry working at airlines such as Northwest airlines, Delta, first in Atlanta, and Virgin Atlantic.
The oneworld alliance is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year and currently has 13 airlines onboard. Next year, with Fiji becoming a full partner in the first quarter and Oman Air due to join by the end of quarter two, they will have 15. Currently, they cover 90% of global demand, but Nathaniel did not rule out taking on new members. Fiji was previously a oneworld Connect member, which was a sort of “oneworld lite” but rather confusing as a consumer. The CEO said he did not foresee taking on any more airlines under the Connect program, effectively ending it for now.
What are the alliance’s current priorities?
The new CEO’s focus will be the customer experience, he said, “The goal, whether you’re traveling on one oneworld airline or five, is that customer experience needs to be exceptional, the connecting experience needs to be exceptional, and that’s every step of the way. It starts when a guest is… booking that ticket, they’re checking in online or on their phone, … or a paper boarding pass.”
This follows on to ensuring your bags make it through safely on connections and that you get your miles credited for the flights on member airlines correctly.
The next priority is digital, as Nathaniel believes that all facets of the customer experience should be controlled from your personal technology while still supporting people who may need or prefer human contact and a paper boarding pass.
Third is trying to use initiatives of scale to improve efficiency by sharing between the airline members.
Finally, looking for where they need to have new airline members.
Common digital platform
The common digital platform has also now been reinvigorated. The vision is that the technology between airlines should be seamless, so you will get all of your connecting information, lounge information, baggage tracking, and more across all airlines on their apps.
Cathay Pacific and Qatar Airways were the first oneworld members to connect into the technology enabling their customers to use either airline’s app and/or website to check in and receive boarding passes for connecting flights on either airline.
The next improvement to launch is dynamic boarding passes across connecting journeys for all airlines. So, if you’re travelling, you can use whatever oneworld airline app you want, whether it’s the first airline you’re flying on that journey or the fourth one.
Once the common platform is up and running, they will consider what to do next, such as implementing real-time bag tracking across the alliance.
oneworld alliance-wide upgrades
oneworld has been talking about alliance-wide upgrades becoming available for several years. This would allow you to use miles from any frequent flyer scheme within the alliance to upgrade on another member’s airline. Currently, if you have booked directly with Finnair, Qatar, BA, and Iberia, you can move your Avios into the carrier’s scheme to upgrade the booking. American Airlines members can already use their miles to upgrade on Qantas as well.
So, I asked Nathaniel for an update. The good news is that British Airways and Iberia are in the process of going live right now where they will trial the best method to manage the upgrades. Do you send the offer to upgrade with miles at the time of booking? Do you send it 72 hours out? Do you send it the day before? Obviously, as a customer, you would want it at the time of booking, but airlines may want to hold back for their own members to get first dibs or see if they can sell cash tickets first. Although you can already transfer Avios between BA and Iberia, hopefully, when it is finalised, it will make using Avios for an upgrade much more seamless between the two.
The good news is that they have reinvigorated the program and now have a proper project plan to fully launch with every member by the end of 2025. We don’t yet know which airlines will come first.
Will there be more new oneworld members?
India is one of the biggest gaps in oneworld’s network, as Air India has always been part of Star Alliance. Indigo is growing rapidly and has relationships with airlines in all three alliances. However, they may be ready to join an alliance soon. Latin America is also a market that they are keeping an eye on, although the financial situation of many airlines there may be prohibitive for a new member.
I also asked about the rumours that Rwandair could join now that Qatar Airways has bought a stake in the airline. Nathaniel felt that with Royal Air Maroc’s planned growth from 50 planes to 200 for the World Cup in 2030, this would provide sufficient coverage. There are also improvements planned at Casablanca airport, making for a more effective hub for the airline. The airline’s hub is also the perfect place from Europe and the US to connect and travel onwards in Africa. Morocco is aiming to double the capacity of its airports by 2035 as part of its efforts to host the Fifa World Cup.
10 comments
any news on a potential onward lounge in Manchester T2? There were rumours several months ago when Virgin abandoned their plans for a clubhouse.
They said there were looking to expand the lounges but would not give any specific details.
*Oneworld lounge
Any news on Aer Lingus becoming a full member ?
No that was no mentioned at all when talking about new members. I don’t think they want to join to be honest
For as long as BA continue to fail in their IT, communications, catering, cabin cleaning and most of all customer service what’s the point of remaining loyal to One world?
Despite record breaking profits and repeated PR announcements spinning essential fleet replacement as “investment” The IT remains bottom scraping, unreliable and insecure. Refurbished and new airframes are densified beyond the reasonable. Catering is still seeing ongoing underprovisioning and as Brunchgate demonstrates the customer comes last…
What’s needed is not more inducements to remain loyal to a fsiled brand but actual real world action to fix what’s broken and some honesty rather than the perpetual spin which any frequent flyer knows is from an alternate universe.
Their IT has been shocking, that’s fair.
Over the coming months you should see a new app and website so with some luck, it’ll be better! We can only hope.
For me, it’s the network BA offer and where I am geographically based that keeps me loyal and I believe it’s the same for many. Hence why they stay strong even when penny pinching! The whole time people are booking, they won’t make changes you want to see.
Interesting they talk about baggage getting through safely. One constant irritation is flying business class and seeing my bags come out after most of the economy bags, despite having a priority sticker on it. I’d like them to address this.
Wouldn’t it be great if they could prioritise bags by flying class.
I doubt the infrastructure would ever allow this to be a thing.
It’s been several years since BA dropped priority baggage handling.
Qatar Airways does a good job of ensuring Priority tagged bags are loaded onto the luggage carousel first. All it needs is process adherence and the Priority & Short Connection luggage container to be loaded after all the other luggage containers. It can then be taken off first, and if like the business class bus, heads off for processing straight away… those bags will be the first on the carousel.
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