S7 Airlines joins Kingfisher and Finnair in oneworld alliance

Russian airline S7 Airlines has joined oneworld, a global airline group that includes Kingfisher and Finnair, and would now be able to sell more routes using its partner network.

"We are very satisfied to welcome to oneworld a top quality alliance partner, whose membership brings even more coverage to the Russian market area," Finnair Managing Director Mika Vehvilainen said.

With the accession of S7 to membership, oneworld flies to as many as 750 destinations in 150 countries.

Recently, at the World Travel Awards event, the oneworld alliance has been selected as the World's Best Airline Alliance by 180,000 travel industry professionals.

Kingfisher Airlines was inducted into the global airline oneworld earlier this year and this would allow partner airlines to sell routes operated by the Indian carrier.

Finnair currently operates six flights a week between New Delhi and Helsinki, which it plans to increase to a daily service from January next year.

Asia accounts for nearly half of the airline's revenue. Over 100 Finnish companies have operations in India and several Indian firms have set up shop in Finland. Besides, the carrier hopes to carry traffic between India and the rest of Europe and to the US.