Picking the Best Airline Alliance for You

In a lot of articles like these, writers tend to breakdown the alliances and their benefits bit by bit, while I am going to talk briefly about those… that is not the central theme to this article. Instead, I am going to share a way for YOU to pick the alliance that is suited to your needs.

Introduction to Airline Alliances:

An airline alliance is a partnership between airlines from different parts of the world. Airlines form alliances primarily to share customer bases, increase routes and connectivity, and create a higher level of convenience and efficiency for passengers. This partnership helps airlines reduce costs through efficiency planning: coordinating appropriate take off times, route selectivity, and an overall better level of service through shared processes.

So if they’re beneficial for airlines, how do they benefit us as passengers and travelers?

For passengers the increased connectivity directly translates to simpler and cheaper ticket bookings, access to more destinations, increased airline variety, and significant departure time flexibility. Additionally, the shared benefits through mileage programs and points earned can lead to rewards redeemable across an airline’s partners for travel and beyond.

Ultimately… joining an alliance is free, it saves you money in the long term, and it can elevate your travel experience. Something important to note however, is that you are never tied down to fly with one alliance and its members. However, remaining loyal to a particular alliance helps combine earned miles and increases the weight of redeemable rewards. 

Let's dive into how you should choose the alliance that's best for you!

There are 2 ways you should breakdown your thoughts when it goes into choosing an alliance to be loyal towards:

1.     Personal – (Time to ask yourself a few questions) A lot of the factors are dependent on your travel style and where you will be flying to and from:

• Hub Airport – Where are you from? Where do you most often expect to fly out of?

  • Do you have multiple home bases? For instance when I was at university, I would consider Chicago and Bombay as my 2 bases, it has since changed to solely Chicago.

  • Does your base have multiple major airports the way Chicago does for me? How often do you fly out of one versus the other, what airlines fly out of each? If you’re in the New York City area, which airport are you closest to/which do you prefer: JFK/LaGuardia/Newark? Do you care enough for it to be a key factor? 

• Potential Routes & Frequency – Quite possibly the most important factor when picking an airline alliance is where you are flying and how repetitive a destination or region may be. If Western Europe is a potential frequent area of travel, then you would want an alliance that offers higher connectivity and flexibility to the geography. Similarly if there are multiple routes both international and domestic (in large enough countries) that you intend to fly those should be top of mind.

• Carrier preferences - While I do not recommend that you pick an airline alliance based on a specific carrier, many people do enjoy flying with specific carriers and swear against their competitors. I have a friend who when given complete autonomy will always fly Delta regardless of price or external factors. The reason I don’t recommend this is because this may lead you to choose an alliance that might not truly be the best for you. For now though, I’ll let you decide how much you’d like a particular carrier to influence your alliance of choice.

2.     Alliance Offers - The benefits an alliance directly provides to its passengers are secondary factors that we must consider as we dive into our evaluation process.

• Connectivity/Routes – For me, connectivity and routes is the single most important factor when I choose an alliance. This is where you need to tie in your frequency and potential routes to identify which alliance is the best for you. My longest and most frequent route for the last 4 years has been Chicago to Mumbai. I also tend to fly within India pretty frequently and due to my love for travel I have no other standout route. Instead, I want an alliance that can connect me to quite literally every corner of the world and touch every continent.  

• Luxury Benefits – Every alliance has tier systems that can give you certain benefits or perks. These can range from free checked baggage, priority boarding, quicker baggage claim, and in my opinion the best perk of all – lounge access regardless of the seat you are flying in. Something to keep in mind is that lounge access takes a while to be earned as you generally need to be at the highest tier within an alliance. Personally, I would not recommend over indexing your choice to these unless you are an ultra-frequent traveler and value luxury travel highly.

Here are the 3 global airline alliances and my rationale behind choosing the one I remain loyal to:

• Star Alliance - By far the largest with 26 carriers. Airlines cover every continent with significant presence in Europe, South and East Asia, South America, and the only alliance with multiple members in Africa. (more on them below)

• Oneworld - The smallest alliance and lacking presence in China and South America. However, they are the only alliance with a major Gulf airline in Qatar Airways. Also boasts significant prominence in Oceania and the Pacific Island nations with Qantas. While Europe is decently represented, all its carriers are on the fringe of the continent. Oneworld's biggest value proposition us that above their regular 2 status tiers which align with Star Alliance and Skyteam offerings, they have a 3rd which elevates lounge access globally and gives flyers of any ticket category access to exclusive first class lounges.

• Skyteam - Beyond their extensive China coverage they have some of the largest European carriers with KLM and Air France, Their Africa, South American and Oceania presence lets them down slightly and they struggle with stability. A lot of its member airlines do not dominate their regions in terms of route network and being first in class carriers. Some had even had corporate issues with Aeroloft currently suspended due to sanctions on Russia and Aerolineas Argentinas & Alitalia dealing with recent solvency challenges.

Why I chose Star Alliance:

• My longest and most frequent route for the last 4+ years has been Chicago to Mumbai. Prime for United (only US carrier to fly to India), Lufthansa (acts as a layover), and Air India. I also tend to fly within India pretty frequently and due to my love for travel I have no other standout route. Instead, I want an alliance that can connect me to quite literally every corner of the world and touch every continent.

• As you saw above Star Alliance has a great presence across Europe, South and East Asia, the Americas, and is the only alliance to have multiple African airlines. Additionally, a lot of the carriers are large and very well connected within their respective regions, with multiple subsidiary airlines for many of its members. Europe is particularly noteworthy due to airlines sitting on the edge of the continent as well as the Lufthansa Group providing immense internal connectivity all while connecting the Far East to the West.

Happy & Safe Flying in 2024