Safety recommendations

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Nov. 8 2010 /PRNewswire/ — oneworld® has been named the World’s Leading Airline Alliance 2010 in the World’s Travel Awards – described by the Wall Street Journal as the “travel industry’s equivalent of the Oscars”.

It is the eighth year running that oneworld has won this honor, retaining the “best alliance” title since 2003.

oneworld was also named World’s Best Airline Alliance in the 2010 World Airline Awards, presented by the Skytrax airline quality organisation in May. In addition, it has also won both the “best alliance for inflight wines” titles presented this year – in Global Traveler magazine’s Wines on the Wing awards in August and Business Traveller’s Cellars in the Sky in February. oneworld is also a three-time winner of the Best Airline Alliance title from Business Traveller magazine.

oneworld member airlines also flew high in the World Travel Awards, with Cathay Pacific named World Leading Airline Economy Class, and American Airlines as North America’s Leading Airline.

The 2010 World Travel Awards were presented at a ceremony in London last night, based on votes cast by more than 180,000 travel agents and other travel professionals worldwide.

oneworld Managing Partner John McCulloch said: “oneworld’s focus has always been on the quality rather than the quantity of our members, so it is very heartening to retain our record of being the only alliance ever to win this World Travel Award since it was first presented. It is a tremendous vote of confidence once again from some of the most knowledgeable people in the travel industry worldwide in what has been a breakthrough year for oneworld.”

The award is the latest landmark for oneworld in what is turning into a breakthrough year for the alliance. In other key milestones so far in 2010:

S7 Airlines, Russia’s leading domestic carrier – and one of the biggest and best international airlines in the Commonwealth of Independent States – will join oneworld a week from today, on Nov. 15.
India’s leading carrier Kingfisher Airlines became a oneworld member elect in June – followed by airberlin, Europe’s fifth biggest airline, in July.
American Airlines, British Airways, Iberia, Finnair and Royal Jordanian in July received long-awaited final approval for their application for anti-trust immunity across the Atlantic, with American, BA and Iberia launching their trans-Atlantic joint business in October.

Japan Airlines has been expanding its cooperation with its oneworld partners since reaffirming its membership of the alliance in February. In October it gained final approval from Japan’s authorities and tentative approval from the US regulators, to launch a joint business with American Airlines between Asia and North America from early next year. JAL has also substantially expanded codesharing with many other oneworld partners.
British Airways and Iberia are on track to complete their merger by the end of the year.
LAN Airlines celebrated its 10th anniversary as a oneworld member on June 1. Since joining, it has added to the grouping its affiliates in Argentina, Ecuador and Peru.
oneworld’s biggest airport co-location project in Asia was completed at the end of October, with British Airways moving alongside all the other on-line oneworld airlines in Terminal 2 at JAL’s Tokyo Narita international base. At the same time, oneworld positioned itself as the leading alliance at Tokyo Haneda, as it opened to scheduled international services, offering the airport’s widest international network and biggest domestic operation.

About oneworld

oneworld brings together some of the best and biggest names in the airline business – American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Finnair, Iberia, Japan Airlines, LAN, Malev Hungarian Airlines, Mexicana, Qantas and Royal Jordanian, and around 20 affiliates including American Eagle, Dragonair, LAN Argentina, LAN Ecuador and LAN Peru. Russia’s S7 Airlines will join the alliance on 15 November 2010 with airberlin and India’s Kingfisher Airlines both member elects. Between them, these airlines:

Serve almost 900 airports in nearly 150 countries, with some 9,500 daily departures.
Offer more than 550 airport lounges for premium customers.
Carry 340 million passengers a year.
Operate a combined fleet of almost 2,500 aircraft.
Generate around US$90 billion annual revenues in total.

Date: 01 February 2010 – Singapore – he International Air Transport Association (IATA) said that in 2009 intra-Asia-Pacific travel had eclipsed the number of travelers in North America as the world’s largest aviation market. Asia-Pacific’s travelers numbered 647 million compared the 638 million who travelled within North America (including domestic markets). By 2013 an additional 217 million travelers are expected to take to the skies within Asia–Pacific.

“Achieving Asia-Pacific’s tremendous potential is contingent upon short-term efforts to battle the impacts of the economic downturn with cost reductions and efficiency gains. Longer-term Asia-Pacific must also face global challenges including environment, security and liberalization,” said Giovanni Bisignani, IATA’s Director General and CEO at the start of the Singapore Air Show Aviation Leadership Summit.

The global aviation industry is expected to reduce losses from US$11.0 billion in 2009 to US$5.6 billion in 2010. The loss reduction is being led by Asia-Pacific’s carriers who are expected to see their losses shrink from US$3.4 billion in 2009 to US$700 million in 2010. “Asia-Pacific’s prospects are improving faster than other regions,” said Bisignani.

Bisignani noted that the Asia-Pacific region is diverse, dynamic and with great potential:

Diverse: Asia-Pacific is home to two of the world’s top five airlines in terms of profitability. At the same time, the region’s governments provided over US$10 billion in government bailouts to airlines in the first quarter of the year. The region’s two biggest growth markets—India and China—face completely different circumstances. India’s challenge is to reduce costs and improve infrastructure, while China is adjusting to new global trade patterns.

Dynamic: Over the last decade China replaced Japan as Asia-Pacific’s largest player. Today China’s fleet is 1,400 aircraft compared to Japan’s 540. Its domestic market of 5.7 million weekly seats is more than double Japan’s 2.6 million and China’s 1.4 million weekly international seat market is now slightly larger than Japan’s 1.3 million.

Potential: In the US, there are three aircraft seats per year for each of the 300 million people who live there. China’s population of 1.3 billion is served by only 0.3 seats per person and India’s 1.1 billion population has only 0.1 seats available per person. “The global air transport industry will triple in size when Asians travel as much as those in the US,” said Bisignani.

“Asia-Pacific’s diversity, dynamism and potential are a great opportunity. Rapidly developing markets are defining aviation’s future. Is Asia-Pacific prepared for the challenges that this will bring?” said Bisignani. In his opening address, Bisignani highlighted three global issues for Asia-Pacific leadership:

Environment: The global aviation industry presented the UNFCCC Climate Change talks in Copenhagen with three targets shared by airlines, airports, air navigation service providers and manufacturers. These are: improving fuel efficiency by an average of 1.5% per year to 2020, stabilizing emissions with carbon-neutral growth from 2020 and cutting our emissions in half by 2050 compared to 2005. These targets are backed by a clear strategy based on technology investment, effective operations, efficient infrastructure and economic measures.

“Even without a binding agreement in Copenhagen aviation is united and committed to its targets. The ICAO Assembly in September-October is an opportunity to build government consensus leading to COP-16 in Mexico,” said Bisignani.

The challenges for Asia include: working through ICAO to accommodate the diverse needs of the region, taking advantage of the tremendous business opportunities in developing sustainable second generation biofuels Biofuels have the potential to reduce aviation’s carbon footprint by up to 80%. “Five airlines have successfully tested biofuels and we expect certification within 2011 at the latest. Aviation biofuel is a US$100 billion plus business opportunity. And I hope that this region will play a key role in its early development,” said Bisignani.

Security: “We live in a global world—global connectivity and global threats. Governments and industry must protect the connectivity and eliminate the threats. That challenge requires industry and governments to work together for effective and efficient security measures,” said Bisignani.

“Ten days ago, I saw some hope for a new collaborative approach when the Secretary of the US Department of Homeland Security consulted the airline industry in our Geneva offices,” said Bisignani. IATA presented recommendations to (1) work together, (2) align requirements with the industry’s capability to implement, (3) make passenger collection more efficient, (4) ensure that governments coordinate their requirements across borders and (5) look to develop a new approach to checkpoint screening that combines technology and intelligence so that we look for bad people, not just bad objects.

Asia-Pacific must define government/industry cooperation on security and find a better way to deal with the cost burden. Currently airlines pay US$5.9 billion a year for security. “These are national security measures. That is a government responsibility, including the bill,” said Bisignani.

Liberalization: “Asian aviation will not reach its potential if the airlines are constrained to old ways of doing business. Industry is preparing for regional liberalization of market access with the ASEAN target date of 2015. It is important that the target date is met. This is already well-behind the industry leading developments in the US-EU Open Skies agreement. Second stage talks will conclude this year with ownership being the most important issue,” said Bisignani.

“To move liberalization forward, IATA took the extra-ordinary step of calling governments together with IATA’s Agenda for Freedom. After a year of talks, in November 2009, seven governments, including the US, the European Commission, Singapore and Malaysia signed a multilateral statement of policy principles. These principles preserve a level playing field while addressing liberalization of market access, pricing and ownership. The challenge for Asia is to implement these principles in the region’s bilateral arrangement,” said Bisignani. Click to view Bisignani’s speech