Oneworld has said that 2010 was its best-ever year for alliance revenues, coming in at $850m for the year.
It said that this represented the fastest growth since the alliance was launched more than a decade ago. Revenues from alliance fares, corporate contracts and other alliance sales activity grew year-on-year by 34% in 2010.
Another highlight for the alliance was the doubling of revenues from big corporate clients. Defined as deals involving seven or more member airlines, oneworld said this reflected a new trend of multinationals seeking deals with alliances rather than individual airlines.
Interline revenues for the 8m or so passengers transferring from one alliance carrier to another, was also strong, up 17% to $2.2bn. Some airline generated more than 10% of total passenger revenue from interline sales.
Oneworld CEO Bruce Ashby said: “For frequent, international business travellers - our core target market - alliance services and benefits are now clearly a ‘must have', so oneworld's customer offering has never been more important in terms of keeping our member airlines competitive and their customers satisfied.”
Oneworld also announced today that Malaysia Airlines has become a member designate and is expected to be a full member by late 2012 [see separate story]