Oman Air Joining Oneworld Alliance In June 2025

In June 2022, it was revealed that Oman Air would join the oneworld alliance. Up until now, we didn’t have an exact timeline for that, but there’s now an update. As reported by Executive Traveller, Oman Air now plans to join the oneworld alliance on June 30, 2025.

Oman Air will be newest oneworld member airline

Oman Air will be joining the oneworld alliance, in a process that should be completed on 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 is 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 two new members (Alaska and Royal Air Maroc), but also lost one member (LATAM).

The oneworld alliance is also in the process of adding Fiji Airways within the next year, and Hawaiian Airlines is expected to join 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 nearly 35 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 has a great first class lounge. 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, 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. Oman Air’s desire to join the alliance was first revealed in 2021, so this is 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?