New dedicated website for French travel agents underlines commitment of oneworld airline alliance to France

2005 年 3 月 16 日

oneworldTM , the leading quality international airline grouping, is introducing a special website for travel agents in France, to support the alliance's sales activity in this key market. Similar versions are planned for other countries later this year.

It features a range of on-line and downloadable tools to make it easier for them to sell its fares and products:

  • An easy-to-use reference guide to codes and short cuts to check availability on any oneworld carrier through any of the major distribution systems - Abacus, Amadeus, Apollo, Galileo, SABRE or Worldspan - or through each member airline's own systems.
  • Product briefs on the alliance's unrivalled range of consumer fares (see separate press release for details of oneworld fares and sales products available in France.)
  • Latest prices of all oneworld sales products available in France.

oneworld Global Sales Manager Filip Lemmens said: "We chose to launch our new dedicated travel agents' website in France first because of the importance of this market to our alliance. Together, our airlines provide air travelers throughout France with a real alternative to the dominant home carrier. The aim of this new site is to make it even easier for travel agents here to sell our services, by providing a one-stop-shop to everything they need to know about oneworld."

oneworld members comprise some of the biggest and best names in the air travel business - American Airlines, British Airways, Qantas, Cathay Pacific, Iberia, LAN, Finnair and Aer Lingus, along with their 17 affiliate carriers.

All of them operate their own flights to and from France, other than LAN and Qantas, who serve the country through code-sharing arrangements with other airlines.

Last year, these airlines carried around six million passengers to or from France, with an overall 12 per cent share of the French air travel market.

Between them, the six on-line oneworld carriers serve 12 airports across France - Paris CDG and Orly, Bastia, Bordeaux, Lyon, Marseille, Montpellier, Mulhouse/Basel, Nantes, Nice, Strasbourg and Toulouse. Today, they serve these gateways a total of more than 1,600 times a week, with direct flights to 25 destinations in Europe, the Americas and Asia.

From those points, they provide the smoothest of connections to a total of 603 destinations in 136 territories - more countries than any other alliance serves – with frequent flyers in any oneworld airline's programme offered their privileges throughout this unrivalled global network.

With oneworld the first of the global alliances to introduce interline e-ticketing between all its partners, customers can travel throughout this network with just one electronic ticket.

Travel agents in France can access their new oneworld website at www.oneworld.com/agents-france

About oneworld: oneworld brings together some of the best and biggest names in the airline business - American Airlines, British Airways, Qantas, Iberia, Cathay Pacific, LAN, Finnair and Aer Lingus - enabling them to offer their customers more services and benefits than any airline can provide on its own. These include a broader route network, opportunities to earn and redeem frequent flyer miles and points across the combined oneworld network and more airport lounges. Together, its members serve 603 destinations in 136 countries. It is the first global alliance with the customer convenience of interline e-ticketing between all its member airlines. oneworld was voted the world's best airline alliance by readers of Business Traveller magazine in its 2004 poll and named the World's Leading Airline Alliance for the second year running in the latest World Travel Awards, based on votes cast by travel professionals from 80,000 agencies in more than 200 countries. Note: LAN affiliate LAN ECUADOR is not a member of oneworld.