British Airways parent IAG may
bring a Gulf airline into the Oneworld alliance this year and considers
Qatar Airways Ltd. to be a top candidate, IAG’s chief executive officer
said on Wednesday.
“We’ll keep
all options open but I admire what Qatar has achieved,” CEO Willie Walsh
said in an interview at an industry conference in Barcelona. “The
combination of what CEO Al Baker has done with the airline and what
Qatar has done with the new airport at Doha makes it very interesting.”
Most
international airlines belong to one of the three global marketing
alliances – Oneworld, SkyTeam and Star – which typically allow them to
sell seats on one another’s flights as their own and to link frequent
flyer programs. Some Gulf carriers are now likely to join one of the
groupings, Walsh said today at the conference.
“The
industry has matured to a point where we’ll see Mideast carriers join
the alliances this year,” Walsh said at the event. “Within Oneworld,
we’ve been debating it. To my mind, they’re key players in the
industry.”
Emirates,
the world’s largest airline by international traffic, is unlikely to
join an alliance because its network is big enough that it doesn’t need
partners, Walsh said. Qatar and Etihad Airways, the Middle East’s
third-largest carrier, are more likely to team with others, the CEO
predicted.
“We never
comment on speculation of this nature, except to say that we talk
regularly and frequently to many airlines and a range of other
businesses from all over the world about issues and opportunities,”
Etihad said in an e-mailed statement to Bloomberg. Qatar did not
immediately respond to a request for comment.
Qatar
Airways serves 113 destinations around the world, with a particular
focus on the Mideast and Far East. It has 108 planes in its fleet, and
over 250 more on order from Boeing and Airbus, giving it one of
the aviation industry’s larger order books.
IAG, or
International Consolidated Airlines Group, was created from the
merger of British Airways with Spain’s Iberia in January of last year.
Oneworld members include IAG, AMR Corp’s American Airlines, Cathay
Pacific Airways, Qantas Airways and Royal Jordanian Airlines.
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