In June 2022, it was revealed that Oman Air would join the oneworld alliance. However, the process of actually joining has been anything but quick. What’s exciting is that we’re now just a few weeks from this becoming a reality, and it’s something I’m looking forward to…
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Oman Air will be newest oneworld member airline
Oman Air will be joining the oneworld alliance, in a process that should be completed on Monday, June 30, 2025. Initially Oman Air was supposed to join the alliance in 2024, but that timeline has been delayed for a variety of reasons.
In 2021, Oman Air revealed its plans to apply to join the oneworld global alliance. The Muscat-based airline was hoping for Qatar Airways’ support in accomplishing this. Qatar Airways is not only another airline from the region, but also a oneworld member airline. For that matter, Qatar Airways’ former CEO was the chairman of oneworld at the time, and one of his primary goals was to expand membership in the alliance.
Then in 2022, plans were formally announced for Oman Air to join oneworld. So it looks like it’ll be around three years from when it was announced until when it actually happens. I know there’s a lot of back-end technology that has to be updated, but goodness, this has been a drawn out process.
In fairness, there’s a lot going on at the airline — Oman Air has a new(ish) CEO, and the carrier is also undergoing a restructuring, including shrinking considerably.
The oneworld alliance is one of the three major global alliances. Major airlines in oneworld include American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Japan Airlines, Qantas, and more. In the past few years the alliance added three new members (Alaska Airlines, Fiji Airways, and Royal Air Maroc), but also lost one member (LATAM).
Hawaiian Airlines is also expected to join the oneworld alliance in 2026, now that it has been acquired by Alaska Airlines.
What is Oman Air, anyway?
Oman Air is a Muscat-based airline, and it operates a fleet of roughly 30 aircraft, including Boeing 737s and Boeing 787s (the airline recently retired all Airbus A330s, so that represents quite a capacity reduction). This is definitely more of a “boutique” airline, and doesn’t compete on the global scale that Emirates and Qatar Airways do, for example. Oman Air flies as far West as the UK, and as far East as the Philippines.
Oman Air has an incredible business class product, as the airline has Apex Suites, which are among my favorite business class seats. Oman Air used to have first class on two Boeing 787-9s, but that product has now been rebranded as Business Studio. The issue is that Oman Air is quite inconsistent. On a good day, Oman Air is top notch. On a bad day… well, not so much.
I’m thrilled that Oman Air is joining the oneworld alliance — oneworld offers the strongest elite recognition of any major alliance (I love being a oneworld Emerald), and the prospect of earning and redeeming oneworld miles for travel on Oman Air is exciting.
I’m also curious to see what Oman Air does when it comes to lounge access for elite members at its Muscat hub. In addition to a solid business class lounge, Oman Air had a great first class lounge. However, with Oman Air having discontinued first class, the airline is no longer using this lounge. Could we see it make a comeback as a oneworld Emerald lounge? I wouldn’t count on it, given the desire for cost cutting, but it sure would be nice…
Alaska Mileage Plan and Qantas Frequent Flyer already allow you to redeem miles on Oman Air, ahead of the airline joining the alliance. On top of that, Oman Air has a partnership with Air Canada Aeroplan, so you can redeem Aeroplan points for travel on the airline.
Is Oman Air a good fit for oneworld?
In some ways I’m surprised that oneworld is the alliance that Oman Air is joining. As much as I’m personally thrilled about this, on the surface you’d think that Star Alliance would be a better fit:
- The oneworld alliance already has Qatar Airways, one of the biggest Gulf airlines, which competes pretty directly with Oman Air for connecting traffic
- Star Alliance, on the other hand, doesn’t have any airlines immediately from that region; the closest airlines would be EgyptAir, Ethiopian Airlines, and Turkish Airlines, but I wouldn’t consider those to be direct competitors in the same way
I suspect this comes down to Qatar Airways and Oman Air cooperating pretty closely in general, and really viewing themselves more as partners than as rivals. Qatar Airways is even currently leasing planes from Oman Air. I suspect this friendship between the airlines is part of the reason that Oman Air selected oneworld.
Bottom line
Oman Air is joining the oneworld alliance, and the current plan is for the airline to join the alliance on June 30, 2025, just a few weeks from now. Oman Air’s desire to join the alliance was first revealed in 2021, so this has been quite the waiting game. As a oneworld loyalist, I’m excited for this development, both when it comes to earning and redeeming points.
What do you make of Oman Air joining oneworld?
What about the negative side: Now there will be absolute price collusion between both airlines on flights between Doha and Muscat. Once again, less competition and higher prices...
What you don't really discuss is their level of partnership. The alliances focus on different partners and your benefits when using partner airlines can be everything like traveling on the prime airline to nothing at all.
I thought this was no longer going to happen. In recent times Oman Air has increased the number of codeshare routes with the Lufthansa group to places like the UK where one would expect a codeshare with BA. Interesting.
What oneworld needs is someone from Africa, China, India, and Latin America as they are 4 glairing holes in their network.
As far as other carriers are concerned, Bangkok Airways would seem like a good fit. Not sure about Westjet.
IndiGo was leaning strongly towards Oneworld all this while, but this month’s partnership with AF/DL/KL/VS places it roughly equally between Oneworld and SkyTeam. It will likely be like Riyadh Air or LATAM and remain alliance-free. SriLankan is too small to cover the Indian subcontinent, but it’s better than nothing.
Latin America will likely never be filled, though AA and IB are doing the best they can; not to mention LATAM still partners with many OW...
IndiGo was leaning strongly towards Oneworld all this while, but this month’s partnership with AF/DL/KL/VS places it roughly equally between Oneworld and SkyTeam. It will likely be like Riyadh Air or LATAM and remain alliance-free. SriLankan is too small to cover the Indian subcontinent, but it’s better than nothing.
Latin America will likely never be filled, though AA and IB are doing the best they can; not to mention LATAM still partners with many OW airlines. I don’t foresee G3 or the like in OW.
Mainland Chinese airlines have steered clear of OW, and CX will see to it that it stays that way. It’s telling that Star has Air China, Shenzhen and (Connecting Partner) Juneyao, and SkyTeam has China Eastern, Xiamen and (affiliate) Shanghai, but OW has zero. However, Taiwan should not have a problem, and I expect to see Starlux joining OW.
As for Bangkok Airways, it’s a ridiculously outdated airline with a doddering Airbus fleet that lives by the good graces of frequent travellers. Never liked PG’s product and stale, outdated branding, and this is one airline I steer absolutely clear of. Philippine Airlines should have joined OW instead, but it too is in a shambles of its own.
I recall a decade ago that a former CX CEO wanted to have China Eastern in oneworld. Then a few years later, there were rumours of China Southern wanting to join.
As for Philippine Airlines, they'll be most likely remain independent. They don't really have anything to offer an alliance and from what I gather, it also has to do with Philippine protectionist laws as well as cost and infrastructure constraints. The reason I mention...
I recall a decade ago that a former CX CEO wanted to have China Eastern in oneworld. Then a few years later, there were rumours of China Southern wanting to join.
As for Philippine Airlines, they'll be most likely remain independent. They don't really have anything to offer an alliance and from what I gather, it also has to do with Philippine protectionist laws as well as cost and infrastructure constraints. The reason I mention Bangkok Airways is Thailand is a more desirable holiday destination with significant oneworld partnerships.
Will Cathay be cool with Starlux joining OW?
Well according to headforpoints when he spoke to Ronald Lam, CEO of Cathay Pacific he said he would let Oneworld management evaluate it, and then go with the recommendation they will make.
So I don't think CX will try to block it.
https://www.headforpoints.com/2024/10/20/cathay-pacific-unlikely-to-return-to-gatwick/
Regardless of whether Starlux joins or not, I hope CX improves their onboard product with increased competition in the region. As Starlux uses their A330neos similarly as CX within the region (CX uses them further), I hope they've chosen a product just as good if not better. Their onboard catering could also use a revamp.
WestJet, IMO, leans more towards Skyteam. The best bet for a OW Canadian airline is Porter honestly.
Hey Ben,
How will this impact award travel on Oman, booked through partners?
I need to make it to either BKK or SIN from Europe in October. As of today I see availability via aeroplan for 80k in J. What will likely happen early July? Aeroplan won’t show Oman anymore, but AA, IB, BA etc likely will? Thx.
“the prospect of earning and redeeming oneworld miles for travel on Oman Air is exciting.”
The question is, unless the miles needed on Oman Air are far less than on Qatar Airways, why would someone with oneworld status/miles choose the former over the latter, when the latter offers a better product both on air and at the airport?
Because if there’s no availability on Qatar but there’s availability on Oman Air, it’s a no brainer. Or it’s only a flexi award available on QR, or you can fly Y on QR but J on Oman.
Guess what folks? ….
This time next week we should know if Oman Air is likely to be a good fit in the OneWorld alliance. With the announcement of the results of the SkyTrax 2025, World Airline Rankings, the ‘ups and downs’ in the industry will be made known.
As we have received no indication from Ben, if he will be attending, we might have to seek our information elsewhere.
This may also be good news as an opportunity to get oneworld status. It's to be seen what they will do, as the currently only have a silver and gold tier level that's not aligned with Ruby, Sapphire and Emerald yet. The gold tier requires 1200 TP which could be earned relatively easily (20 short haul business class). I wonder what the changes would be to the programme once they join.
Unusually found this article confusing based on tenses.
“Oman air has a great first class lounge”
..”no longer using this lounge”
@ vandhk -- Fair point, thanks, updated that from "has" to "had." I could see the argument for either tense (since the lounge is physically nice, even if it's not open), but what you're saying is definitely more logical. :-)
Run your articles through ChatGPT and ask it to "refine" your writing. AI is already reading your articles for knowledge purposes, so might as well use it to your advantage.
thanks Ben, makes sense! It just took me one too many reads and thought it was worth a fix