Sri Lankan Airlines on Wednesday announced it has joined oneworld, a grouping of global airlines, making the national carrier of the island country the first from the Indian subcontinent to join any global airline alliances.
Sri Lankan Airlines becomes the 15th global airline to be part of the oneworld alliance. Airlines such as Airberlin, American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Malaysia Airlines and Qatar Airways are part of oneworld.
The airline has been in talks with oneworld for the past 3 years, according to the officials.
The airline said that it is expecting $25 million of additional revenues per annum with its entry into the alliance. The airline currently operates in 20 countries and 32 destinations with a share of almost 40% of the total in-bound passengers that flew into Sri Lanka last year. Post the alliance, the airline will get an access to 900 destinations.
The airline is also in the process of adding additional aircraft to its fleet. It currently has a pending order of 10 aircraft starting from 2014. It will take deliveries of 4 Airbus A350-900s.
The airline also announced its codeshare with two more oneworld partners – Finnair and S7 Airlines.
