American Airlines and Alaska Airlines are joining forces as a "West Coast International Alliance" that will include increased codesharing, reciprocal loyalty program benefits and, ultimately, Alaska's entry into the Oneworld alliance and expanded American international service out of Seattle.
American and Alaska have had loyalty program cooperation in place, but the carriers had planned to drastically scale down that cooperation next month. Now, however, the two airlines have announced closer cooperation, restoring domestic codesharing and expanding it to include American's international service out of Seattle and Los Angeles. While not a joint venture, the partnership will give American Airlines a stronger domestic West Coast network while giving Alaska connection to long-haul international routes, American Airlines SVP of sales and global distribution Alison Taylor said.
"We have a really robust and growing international hub in LAX, and this makes it an ever-greater customer proposition," American Airlines managing director of western division sales Kyle Mabry said. "Alaska has a really impressive network up and down the West Coast, and this brings in the power of that and their amazing reputation."
Reciprocal loyalty benefits and lounge access for Alaska and American loyalty program members begins immediately, including the ability to earn and use miles across both networks, full elite status reciprocity and use of 50 American Admirals Clubs worldwide and seven Alaska lounges, according to an American spokesperson. The timing of domestic and international codesharing is pending review of the U.S. Department of Transportation.
Alaska plans to join Oneworld by the summer of 2021. The global sales partnership that it assembled last summer will remain in place, an Alaska spokesperson said.
American also announced that it will begin daily service between Seattle and Bangalore Kempegowda International Airport in October, which will be the first direct flight between Seattle and India as well as the only direct service between North America and Bangalore, American Airlines managing director of strategic account sales Hank Benedetti said. "Buyers have said constantly that Bangalore is the No. 1 destination they want of anywhere in the world, so this will be a huge benefit to the corporate travel community," he said.
In addition, American plans to launch daily service between Seattle and London Heathrow in March 2021.