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Tag: oneworld

  • SkyTeam had the best on-time performance among top airlines in 2025

    Delta was the MVP in Cirium’s on-time performance rankings released yesterday. Here are the top 10 on-time airlines:

    • Aeromexico – 90%
    • Saudia – 87%
    • SAS – 86%
    • Azul – 85%
    • Qatar – 84%
    • Iberia – 84%
    • LATAM – 82%
    • Avianca – 82%
    • Turkish – 81%
    • Delta – 81%

    What makes Delta impressive is the volume: the airline ran 1.8 million flights and still made it into the top 10. The other nine airlines averaged roughly 300k flights each.

    The report lists the top 10 on-time airlines by region and their total completed flights, making it possible to calculate the on-time performance of each alliance among top airlines:

    • SkyTeam – 82% of 2.7m flights
    • Star Alliance – 79% of 3.7m flights
    • No alliance – 79% of 5.5m flights
    • oneworld – 78% of 4.0m flights

    The major factor, as always, is the US airlines, where American was the biggest player but also the slowest. On-time performance among major US airlines:

    • Delta – 81% of 1.8m flights
    • United – 79% of 1.7m flights
    • American – 76% of 2.2m flights

    (Alaska was on-time for 79% of their 453k flights, and credit to Spirit, which had the same on-time performance for their 218k flights.)

  • oneworld in 2026

    (If you’re new here, welcome. Spheres is where I post news and commentary about flying with oneworld and whatever goes along with that. You can also get these posts in a free newsletter. One email per week.)

    Here are the routes, planes, services, and other changes that caught my eye for 2026.

    oneworld

    Alaska

    American

    British

    Cathay

    Fiji

    Finnair

    Iberia

    JAL

    Malaysia

    Oman

    • New routes from Muscat to Singapore, Copenhagen (via Baghdad), and Taif
    • Retiring the B737-800 and 900-ER

    Qantas

    • New routes between the Gold Coast to Auckland; Sydney to Samoa (via Auckland), and Port Moresby
    • New lounges: refurbished Business lounge in Los Angeles,4 new lounge in Hobart, and refurbished regional lounges
    • Free wifi on international routes flown by the A330, B787, and A380
    • Project Sunrise test flights

    Qatar

    Royal Air Maroc

    Royal Jordanian

    SriLankan

    —

    1. If there is a new member airline from India, it will be IndiGo. The only other major airline, Air India, is a Star Alliance member. IndiGo partnered with four SkyTeam members in June, but it also has ties with American, British, JAL, Qantas, and Qatar. ↩︎
    2. Alaska and American are following the same playbook for wifi: it’s free because a cellular network is sponsoring it, and you’ll only get it if you’re a member of the airline’s loyalty program. I hope they’ll spare members of each other’s programs or non-US oneworld airlines from having to sign up for an account that will never get used. ↩︎
    3. Ditto. ↩︎
    4. The concept photo suggests that the iconic Eames Lounge Chairs aren’t coming along for the ride. ↩︎

  • Nat Pieper steps down from oneworld; moves to American

    American Airlines, this morning:

    American Airlines Group Inc. today announced that Nathaniel (Nat) Pieper has been named Chief Commercial Officer. Pieper, currently CEO of the oneworld alliance, will assume his new role effective Nov. 3. He will report to American’s CEO Robert Isom.

    …As Chief Commercial Officer, Pieper will lead all of American’s commercial strategy, planning and performance across alliances and partnerships, cargo, co-branded credit card program, loyalty, network planning, revenue management and sales and distribution. In addition, he will co-lead the airline’s Customer Experience team with American’s Chief Operating Officer David Seymour.

    Hard to say how much of a loss this is for oneworld given Pieper’s short tenure; he previously ran alliance strategy at Alaska and Delta. It’s certainly a win for American, which has seemed strategically rudderless for years.