I ran across an interesting statistic in all the materials pulled together as part of the 10th anniversary celebration of the oneworld alliance.
Every day, 8,200 passengers get on to American Airlines flights through connections from other carriers who are partners in the oneworld alliance.
That’s 8,200 seats we fill a day from international feed, or enough to fill 73 MD-80s.
That’s a huge impact not only on revenue (AA passenger revenues from oneworld partners topped $1 billion last year), but also jobs. Consider this: each MD-80 we fly supports 10 pilots' jobs and dozens of other jobs across the company.
In other words, this feed matters – not only to AA customers who benefit from the vast network of international destinations oneworld offers, but also to AA employees. We all benefit from alliances that strengthen the brand.
In this competitive industry, one of the most important things we can do as an airline is anticipate the shape of air travel in the future. Key to that is alliances that almost all U.S. airlines have used to leverage their networks through partnerships with foreign carriers. That’s our goal with our proposed joint business agreement with British Airways and Iberia that will help us level the playing field against competitors in other alliances.
With oneworld, we’ve got ten years of experience that demonstrates this model works.
