Alaska, American Airlines expand alliance

Alaska Airlines and American Airlines are planning to expand their partnership, the airlines announced Thursday morning, and this will potentially offer travelers from Seattle access to an extensive network of international flights.

Instead of carrying out existing plans to dial back their domestic code-share relationship this March, Alaska and American will expand that code-share to include West Coast international routes from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport and Los Angeles International Airport. (This proposed change requires Department of Transportation approval before it can take effect.)

In addition, American Airlines has plans to launch two international routes from Seattle — to Bangalore, India, and London’s Heathrow Airport.

But perhaps the biggest news for Seattleites who frequently travel internationally is that Alaska plans to join the oneworld alliance, a network of 13 global airlines that includes the likes of Cathay Pacific, British Airways, Qantas and Japan Airlines. The goal is to offer international travelers ease of connection and allow them to benefit from shared services among the member airlines.

As international corporate interests in Seattle continue to grow with the expansion of companies like Amazon, Microsoft and Boeing, Alaska hopes this strengthened alliance with American will allow it to contend on an international level, said Nat Pieper, an Alaska Airlines vice president.

“As Alaska thinks about ‘how can we compete and get our fair share of business from those corporations?’ we have to have an international offering as well,” Pieper said. “It has to be hassle-free. It has to be effective from a mileage plan and from a flyer perspective.

“If these employees want to be able to fly anywhere in the world, we have to be able to offer them an effective and easy way to do that.”