Back in October Qatar Airways announced their intent to join the OneWorld alliance, a process which would take 12-18 months. Historically airlines will sometimes already launch individual partnerships prior to the official join date, while in other cases they don’t.

Well, it looks like American will be kicking off their relationship with Qatar Airways sooner rather than later, as they’ll begin codesharing on February 10, 2013, for flights beginning February 26, 2013.

This is great news because it means it’ll be possible to earn both redeemable and elite qualifying miles with American for travel on Qatar Airways. The key is that in order to qualify the flights have to be booked as codeshares, meaning your Qatar Airways flight has to have an American flight number.

Unfortunately no time frame has been set yet for the ability to redeem miles on Qatar Airways. It may only be possible once they join OneWorld or it may be possible earlier; it’s anyone’s guess.

It’ll be interesting to see what the implications of this are in regards to American’s relationship with Etihad Airways. I can’t imagine they’re all too thrilled about American partnering with one of their main competitors, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see that partnership end, especially once Qatar Airways joins OneWorld.

As it turns out Qatar Airways will be joining OneWorld, despite their CEO, al-Baker, being quoted as saying:

Baker also said Qatar was not preparing to join the oneworld alliance after sources close to the airline group said that next week it would become the first Gulf carrier to join.

“Qatar Airways is not considering joining oneworld at this time,” Baker said.

and:

Qatar Airways has no plans to join the oneworld airline alliance, its Chief Executive Akbar al-Baker said on Sunday, dismissing reports that the airline had become the newest member of the group as “rumor.”

and:

Asked if the carrier would join oneworld, which includes British Airways, owned by IAG, Baker said: “No, we will not. It’s all rumors.”

I can understand the CEO not wanting to confirm the announcement in advance, but outright denying it seems over the top. Anyway, it’s supposed to be 12-18 months before the integration is complete.

When I first heard the speculation I shared my thoughts on why I thought this wasn’t a good fit, and I stand by it. While Qatar is a great airline, this will cause serious friction with Qantas (which has a huge joint venture with Emirates), American (which has a partnership with Etihad), and Air Berlin (which is partly owned by Etihad). With all three airlines I suspect this will either lead to the airlines dropping their current partners or dropping OneWorld altogether. I’d say American will likely terminate their relationship with Etihad eventually, Qantas may eventually be forced to terminate their membership in OneWorld, and Air Berlin may also eventually terminate their relationship with OneWorld. That’s all speculation at this point, though, and it’ll be interesting to see what actually happens.

Holy mackerel, it must be April Fools in Doha or something. Over the weekend I posted about a Flightglobal article suggesting that Qatar Airways would be joining the OneWorld alliance, including the following quote:

Oneworld will hold an event announcing a “significant membership development” on 8 October, coming amidst widely-reported discussions with Qatar Airways about joining the alliance.

The event will be held in New York and includes Bruce Ashby, chief executive of Oneworld, Tom Horton, chairman and chief executive of American Airlines, and Willie Walsh, chief executive of International Airlines Group (IAG), according to documents obtained by Flightglobal.

Qatar has been linked to joining one of the big three alliances in the near future.

Then a day later I posted about Qatar Airways’ CEO dismissing the rumors, per a Reuters article:

Qatar Airways has no plans to join the oneworld airline alliance, its Chief Executive Akbar al-Baker said on Sunday, dismissing reports that the airline had become the newest member of the group as “rumor.”

Asked if the carrier would join oneworld, which includes British Airways, owned by IAG, Baker said: “No, we will not. It’s all rumors.”

And today the Financial Times is reporting that Qatar Airways will be joining the OneWorld alliance:

Qatar Airways is set to be the first of the fast-expanding Gulf carriers to become a member of one of the global airline alliances, by agreeing to join oneworld.

I can understand Qatar Airways not wanting to confirm the rumor until the official announcement is made, but the CEO blatantly dismissing it? I don’t get it…

Definitely a big win for frequent flyers, though like I said in my previous posts, I don’t see this as an especially good match from the perspective of OneWorld airlines. I guess this helps to explain why Qatar Airways and United terminated their relationship in September.

The one thing worth noting is that on the mileage redemption front Qatar’s relationship with American won’t be quite as lucrative as it was with United. That’s because for the most part American doesn’t let you transit other zones on an all partner award ticket without pricing it as separate awards. Through United you could book Qatar Airways award tickets from the US to the Middle East, Asia, Africa, etc. Through American you’ll only be able to book Qatar Airways award tickets to the Middle East and India unless you want to book separate tickets or use a distance based award.

I also wonder what this means for American’s relationship with Etihad Airways…

Flightglobal reports:

Oneworld will hold an event announcing a “significant membership development” on 8 October, coming amidst widely-reported discussions with Qatar Airways about joining the alliance.

The event will be held in New York and includes Bruce Ashby, chief executive of Oneworld, Tom Horton, chairman and chief executive of American Airlines, and Willie Walsh, chief executive of International Airlines Group (IAG), according to documents obtained by Flightglobal.

Qatar has been linked to joining one of the big three alliances in the near future.

Flightglobal is a reputable source so this does seem to suggest that they have inside information that Qatar Airways will be joining OneWorld if everything goes as planned.

There’s no denying this would be huge. The three big “players” in the Middle East are typically considered to be Emirates, Etihad, and Qatar Airways, and while they’ve all formed extensive partnerships, we’ve yet to see any of them join one of the three big alliances. If one of the airlines joined it would almost certainly place pressure on the others to join one of the other alliances, which would be great for consumers.

That being said, I’m trying to rationalize Qatar Airways’ participation in OneWorld, and simply can’t:

• American already has partnerships with Etihad and Gulf Air, and Royal Jordanian is in OneWorld, so they have the Middle East pretty well covered.
• In the US, Qatar Airways would be a much better fit for the Star Alliance. They service Houston, New York, and Washington, only one of which is an American hub, so they gain very little in the US market.
• Qantas and Emirates just announced a HUGE joint venture, whereby Qantas will be funneling many of their passengers through Dubai.

Don’t get me wrong, having Qatar Airways join OneWorld would be a huge win, though it seems like they’d be ruffling up a lot of feathers with this. I think Qatar Airways would have a lot more to gain by joining the Star Alliance given that most Star Alliance airlines don’t have major relationships with Middle Eastern carriers already. And this could be a loss for OneWorld, given that I can’t imagine Emirates would be too pleased about this, and wouldn’t be surprised if they force Qantas to leave OneWorld and form a fourth alliance as a result.

If one of the Middle Eastern airlines were to join OneWorld, it would make a lot more sense if it were Emirates (due to their huge new partnership with Qantas) or Etihad (given their partnership with some OneWorld carriers already).

What do you guys think? Am I off base? Think it will be Qatar Airways announced on the 8th, or a different airline?

(Tip of the hat to Gary)

As I noted last week, United’s partnership with Qatar Airways ends tomorrow, September 14. I’m only bringing this up again because over the past couple of days United completely stopped displaying Qatar Airways award space, which led many to believe that they terminated the relationship early. The good news is that Qatar Airways award space is once again bookable… for now. So don’t completely give up hope.

If you want to fly Qatar Airways, now is the time to make the booking. See this post for suggestions on making Qatar Airways bookings, given that reservations agents can’t see Qatar Airways award space for the most part. Qatar Airways has a great business class product and offers some of the most direct service to otherwise tough to reach destinations like the Maldives.