The Airline Alliances

Taking a look at the airline alliances
There are three major airline alliances in the world. Star Alliance was the first one, and the other two are Oneworld and Skyteam. The airlines within these alliances co-operate in a number of ways, such as codesharing (operating flights on behalf of one another), synchronised schedules and the possibility of redeeming miles for award flights on other airlines in the same alliance (which is why I could fly first and business class on THAI and EVA Air after having earned enough points on my SAS Eurobonus account, for example). Interestingly enough, the three big US carriers (American Airlines, Delta and United Airlines) have all co-founded one each of the three different alliances.

Star Alliance
Star Alliance is the oldest of the airline alliances, and was founded in 1997 by Air Canada, Lufthansa, SAS, THAI and United Airlines. If looking at annual passengers, Star Alliance is the second biggest alliance, just a couple of million passengers behind Skyteam, although way ahead of Oneworld. Since over half of them operate at ARN, it's no surprise that this is the alliance that I'm most familiar with.

Number of members: 27
Number of members that I've flown: 10
Number of members that operate from Stockholm (ARN or BMA): 16

I've got 10 Star Alliance airlines under my belt now, adding the 11th in November, if all goes according to plan. There are still a whole bunch of airlines to try, and quite a few of them are based in Europe, although it would be fun to try Air Canada, and thus being able to say that I've flown on all five of the founding members.

Most likely to fly in the future: Brussels Airlines (in November, if all goes according to plan), Swiss, TAP Portugal


Oneworld
Oneworld was founded in 1999, and is the smallest alliance when it comes to number of member airlines as well as annual passengers. Just like Star Alliance, there were five founding members: American Airlines, British Airways, Canadian Airlines, Cathay Pacific and Qantas. Canadian Airlines has since left the alliance and merged with Air Canada, member of Star Alliance.

Number of members: 13
Number of members that I've flown: 5
Number of members that operate from Stockholm (ARN or BMA): 5

An A350-900 of Qatar Airways, painted in Oneworld livery

I went from 3 to 5 flown airlines in October this year, when I flew both British Airways and Qatar Airways. Both were great, and I would love to fly on several of the quite few Oneworld members that are left, such as Qantas, JAL and Cathay Pacific. The problem is that most of the Oneworld airlines don't operate at ARN, and many of them are not even European, which means I'd have to get on a long-haul flight to another continent just to be able to try them out. Iberia and S7 do operate at ARN though, so we'll see if I fly them sometime in the future (although I'm in no hurry to do so).

Most likely to fly in the future: LATAM (in November, if all goes according to plan), Iberia, Cathay Pacific


Skyteam
Founded in 2000, Skyteam is the youngest of the airline alliances. While not having as many members as Star Alliance, they still carry more annual passengers. The four founding members of Skyteam are Aeroméxico, Air France, Delta and Korean Air.

Number of members: 20
Number of members that I've flown: 1 (Air France)
Number of members that operate from Stockholm (ARN or BMA): 7

Going through the members, I was actually surprised to see that seven of them operate at ARN, as I was expecting that number to be lower. That means it would be fairly easy to increase the number of Skyteam airlines that I've flown, although I'm not really interested in that. For some reason, this alliance seems like the most boring to me, despite having members such as Korean Air and China Airlines. One of the Skyteam airlines has been high on my "want to fly-list" for quite some time, though, and that is KLM. I definitely hope to fly them sooner rather than later, and think that their 100 anniversary in October 2019 might be as good a reason as any. Other "easy" airlines include TAROM and Czech Airlines, both of which have popped up in my travel plans occasionally in the past.

Most likely to fly in the future: KLM, Czech Airlines, TAROM

So that's it. Some statistics and thoughts on the airline alliances. My favourite is probably still the Star Alliance, although the Oneworld members have been really good. If the LATAM flight in November is just as good, I might start viewing them as just as good (or even better). Skyteam are still far behind, but probably mainly because I have basically never flown them. In the next couple of days I'll start posting a trip report from British Airways, and pretty soon I'll also write a post about the airlines that I'm a member of.