Ten years ago this month, Finnair joined the then brand-new oneworld airline alliance. Today, alliance membership has grown from its founding members - American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas - to its ten current members also including Iberia, Japan Airlines, LAN, Malev Hungarian Airlines and Royal Jordanian, and their nearly 20 subsidiary airlines. Later this year, Mexicana will join the alliance, while Russia’s S7 Airlines will join in 2010.

“Membership in the oneworld alliance provides excellent advantages to our Finnair customers,” notes Michael Maass, Finnair’s Sales Director North America. “Because of it, we are able to offer our passengers a route and service network that includes almost 750 airports in nearly 150 countries as well as frequent-flyer benefits on all oneworld airline flights. Also, since June our clients have been able to book all oneworld airline flights on Finnair's website finnair.fi.”

To celebrate this tenth anniversary, the alliance is offering ten per cent discounts for a period of ten weeks prior to November 3, 2009. The special offers are valid on all oneworld’s alliance fares but do not include fares offered by its member airlines individually or in conjunction with other carriers.

Membership in the oneworld alliance brings significant additional passengers to Finnair's Asia route network by enabling onward connections on the flights of oneworld's Asian members - Qantas, Japan Airlines and Cathay Pacific. Annually nearly 30 per cent of passengers on Finnair's Southeast Asia flights continue on oneworld airline flights to various Asian destinations.

oneworld is the only alliance to have a full Australian network, a member airline in South America and a member airline in the Middle East. The comprehensive alliance helps promote efficient travel and the use of the most direct routes possible, thereby reducing the emissions generated.

Membership in the alliance is also a guarantee of quality. oneworld focuses, for example, on its members' check-in arrangements, lounges, aircraft departures, cabin staff, meals, seat comfort, punctuality, cabin entertainment, aircraft cleanliness and baggage handling. In this way it safeguards the alliance's reputation and is able to offer a consistent level of service to its quality-conscious customers. Furthermore, all airlines belonging to oneworld have environmental targets.
 
The oneworld alliance members currently include American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Finnair, Iberia, Japan Airlines, LAN, Malev Hungarian Airlines, Qantas and Royal Jordanian as well as some 20 subsidiaries, including American Eagle, Dragonair, LAN Argentina, LAN Ecuador and LAN Peru, and together, they:
- serve almost 750 airports in nearly 150 countries, with some 8,500 daily departures;
- offer nearly 550 airport lounges for premium customers;
- carry some 330 million passengers a year;
- employ 300,000 people;
- operate almost 2,500 aircraft;
- generate some US$100 billion annual revenues in total.