Fiji Airways will transition from being the Oneworld Alliance’s connecting partner to its 15th full member carrier. The carrier, which joined the Oneworld Connect programme in 2018 as its first member, is expected to complete the transition by the middle of 2025. Oneworld CE Nat Pieper says the addition of Fiji Airways “will strengthen our position as the premier airline alliance for international global travellers”. Speaking at a Oneworld briefing during the IATA AGM in Dubai, Fiji Airways CE Andre Viljoen says: “While we have been a Oneworld Connect member since 2018, attaining full membership has always been our goal.” The addition of Fiji Airways comes as the alliance – which is celebrating its 25th anniversary – prepares to induct Oman Air as its newest member this year. The Muscat-based carrier will also be Oneworld’s third Middle Eastern member carrier, following Qatar Airways, as well as Royal Jordanian Airlines. The alliance also inducted Alaska Airlines in 2021, while Royal Air Maroc became its first African member when it joined in 2020. Asked at the briefing if Oneworld is looking to continue adding members, Pieper points out that while the alliance is “talking to everyone”, it is focused on “quality versus quantity” of membership. <br/>
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American Airlines Group pushed a federal appeals court to overturn a decision invalidating its partnership with JetBlue Airways Corp., saying the ruling would prevent the airline from entering into future joint ventures. Gregory G. Garre, a lawyer for American, said the trial judge’s decision to invalidate the Northeast Alliance rested on a legal misunderstanding of how the antitrust laws operate. Eliminating JetBlue as a competitor “in itself is not anti-competitive,” Garre told a three-judge panel on the 1st US Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston. “You have to link it to actual consumer harm in the marketplace in the form of increase in price or output reduction.” Following a trial, US District Judge Leo Sorokin found that the Northeast operating alliance between the two airlines violated antitrust laws. American and JetBlue said they created the agreement to compete more effectively in the New York City and Boston areas with Delta Air Lines Inc. and United Airlines Holdings Inc. After the ruling, JetBlue ended its fight for the partnership but American appealed. At Monday’s argument, Garre said the injunction issued by Sorokin would prevent American from entering into future partnerships for the next 10 years.<br/>
IAG SA CEO Luis Gallego cut short a trip to Dubai for the annual gathering of airline chiefs to race back to Brussels and discuss the group’s bid to acquire Air Europa. Gallego left the IATA event, which runs through Tuesday, on Sunday in a last-minute move that saw him cancel commitments for the remaining days of the meeting. British Airways owner IAG is making a fresh attempt to acquire the 80% of Spanish airline Air Europa that it doesn’t already own following a failed bid in 2021. The current deal is facing scrutiny from European regulators. “We maintain very frequent conversations with the European Commission with the aim of resolving all their possible objections to the acquisition of Air Europa,” an IAG representative said. “This meeting is part of that constructive dialog process.” IAG’s tilt at Air Europa is one of several potential attempts at consolidation in the European airline space. Deutsche Lufthansa AG’s bid for a 41% stake in ITA Airways is also under the microscope for its potential impact on competition. <br/>
Royal Air Maroc is evaluating bids from Airbus, Boeing and Embraer as it looks to place an order for almost 200 jets by September. About two thirds of the 188 planes that the airline aims to order will be narrowbody jets, with the remainder long-haul widebodies offering no more than 350 seats, CEO Abdelhamid Addou said in an interview in Dubai. The carrier is also looking for 30 regional jets as part of the larger narrowbody purchase, he said. The airline has already ordered 12 aircraft and is now looking to add more to expand its fleet. Morroco’s national carrier is studying offers that it received from planemakers last month, and will see next “what will be the schedules of deliveries and what conditions we can get,” Addou said. Whatever the order, not all aircraft will arrive in time to meet surging demand, and the airline will bridge the gap with leased planes, Addou said. <br/>