BREAKING :

Kingfisher Airlines to join oneWorld, reports Airlineroute.net
The report is found at American Airlines website ( UPDATE: Now removed and alternatively found here )

QUOTE :

Tuesday, 23 February 2010:

India’s leading domestic carrier and only five-star airline, Kingfisher Airlines, is lining up to join oneworld^® after signing a memorandum of understanding as its first step towards full membership of the world’s leading quality airline alliance, subject to Indian regulatory approval.

The agreement was concluded at a meeting between Kingfisher Airlines’ Chairman Vijay Mallya and Chief Executives from oneworld’s 11 existing member airlines, which include some of the best and biggest names in the industry.

Kingfisher Airlines today applied to India’s Ministry of Civil Aviation for authority to proceed with its membership of oneworld.

A target date for Kingfisher Airlines to join the alliance will be confirmed once this approval is gained.  The process to bring any airline on board normally takes around 18 months to complete, so Kingfisher Airlines could be expected to start flying as part of oneworld during 2011.

Kingfisher Airlines’ addition to oneworld will link India’s most extensive domestic network with oneworld’s unrivalled global network, as the only alliance with airlines based on every continent.

It will add 58 cities to the oneworld map – all of them in India.  This will expand oneworld’s network to 800 destinations in almost 150 countries, served by a combined fleet of 2,350 aircraft operating some 9,000 flights a day, carrying some 340 million passengers a year.

Established oneworld members American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Finnair, Japan Airlines, Qantas and Royal Jordanian already serve five gateways in India between them – Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad and Mumbai.

British Airways will support Kingfisher Airlines through its alliance implementation programme, as its oneworld sponsor.

Kingfisher is already a partner of oneWorld’s Global Explorer program.

Originally posted on Airline Industry Review

The Japanese newspaper Asahi has reported that JAL has commited to stay in OneWorld alliance.
According to the newspaper, JAL has ended talks with Delta and will officially announce it’s decision soon.
It is reported that JAL’s new CEO, Kazuo Inamori, and officials of the Enterprise Turnaround Initiative Corp of Japan has decided that switching alliances at this stage is too risky for JAL.
Apart from the cost involved with upgrading computer systems and related costs, the risk that JAL and Delta would not receive anti-trust immunity played into the decision, the Asahi reported.
Attempts by Reuters to reach JAL or ETIC spokesmen regarding this matter has been unsuccessful.

Original Asahi article in Japanese could be found here .

Originally posted on Airline Industry Review