The main benefit of this, from a passenger perspective, is the fact that you can book multi-leg itineraries that, despite the flights being operated by different airlines, have protected connections, offering travelers convenience and peace of mind.
Today, the airline industry is dominated by three alliances, with the oldest of these also being the largest. Let's take a closer look at its history and development.
Alliances in a nutshell
Before diving deeper into the story of the world's oldest and largest alliance, it is first worth briefly touching upon what alliances are and how they work. After all, the integrated ticketing solutions mentioned earlier as a key benefit are not mutually exclusive with being in an alliance.
Indeed, Simple Flying recently covered an expansion of the codeshare agreement between BA and non-alliance carrier JetBlue.
However, the average airline passenger is perhaps less likely to be aware of non-alliance codeshare partnerships, such as the arrangement between JetBlue and British Airways, without more obvious visual cues, such as shared branding.
With this in mind, alliance membership gives passengers a conspicuous link between an airline and its partners, making them more likely to be aware of the offering.
As Nerd Wallet points out, there are also loyalty benefits to alliance membership. Indeed, while alliances don't operate collective loyalty programs, passengers with points or miles from one airline can often spend them with their fellow alliance members.
Additionally, alliances have their own status tiers that correspond to the levels earned at member airlines, giving frequent flyers more choice when it comes to factors such as priority and lounge access. Today, the three main alliances are:
Back when it all began
The first of these three to come into existence was the Star Alliance, which was founded in May 1997. The group came into existence through a collaboration between five airlines, all of whom, as Travel & Leisure notes, remained part of the team until recently.
This was not the case at oneworld, with founding member Canadian Airlines having ceased operations shortly after that alliance was founded.
The Star Alliance's founding members came from Asia, Europe, and North America, with the carriers in question being Air Canada, Lufthansa, SAS, Thai Airways, and United Airlines.
As pictured above, one of the group's early branding campaigns featured a Lufthansa Airbus A340-200 painted in a livery combining all of their paint schemes, as well as Varig (who joined in October 1997).
According to the Star Alliance website, the group was founded "as the first global aviation alliance, (...) dedicated to international travel innovation and providing customers a seamless journey."
One of the company's reported ambitions at the time of its founding was to eventually build an alliance-wide network that would give aerial access to every major city on the planet for its passengers.
The alliance grew quickly and strongly in its early years. Indeed, following the aforementioned arrival of Brazilian carrier Varig in 1997, several other airlines would get in on the act before the century was over.
These included Air New Zealand and Ansett Australia, who came onboard in May 1999, followed by Japanese carrier All Nippon Airways (ANA), which joined the party in October of that year.
The world's largest airline alliance
As the Star Alliance continued to grow at the turn of the century, airlines around the world saw its success and were faced with the choice of either joining the group or forming their own in order to compete with it.
This led to the establishment of two more major airline alliances, with American Airlines, British Airways, Canadian Airlines, Cathay Pacific and Qantas launching oneworld in February 1999.
Meanwhile, the turn of the century represented a time of new beginnings in the commercial aviation sector, with the formation of the world's third major airline alliance occurring in June 2000. This came about as a result of a collaboration between Aeroméxico, Air France, Delta Air Lines, and Korean Air, with the alliance being known as the SkyTeam.
All four airlines remain members of the alliance today.
Since then, no new major airline alliances have been formed, with oneworld, SkyTeam, and the Star Alliance having continued to grow in the quarter of a century that has followed.
As the oldest, the Star Alliance has had the most time on its hands to be able to recruit new airline members, and, correspondingly, it is the largest alliance, with 25. Meanwhile, oneworld has 13, and SkyTeam has 19.
With this in mind, it is also unsurprising to see that the Star Alliance has the largest collective network of the three major groupings, with Nerd Wallet noting that its members serve 1,250 destinations all over the world.
Meanwhile, the site lists SkyTeam's collective network as featuring 1,150 destinations (in 175 countries), while oneworld, despite having far fewer members, is only just behind, on 1,100.
Special liveries
Another metric by which Star Alliance is a market leader is in terms of its capacity when measured by revenue passenger kilometers. According to IATA, the member airlines of the Star Alliance collectively accounted for 23% of the worldwide market in this regard in 2023, compared to 20.4% for SkyTeam and 17.8% for oneworld. As such, it is clear that Star Alliance is a globally recognizable brand.
Despite this, the alliance has continued to strive to further increase its visual presence at the world's airports through the use of special liveries on certain aircraft in the fleets of its member airlines.
As pictured above, these schemes are relatively simple, consisting of the alliance's name in large capital letters on the white fuselage of the aircraft, with its logo present on either a white or a black tail.
Of course, the concept of a special livery is not unique to the Star Alliance. Indeed, oneworld and SkyTeam have also devised similar paint schemes over the years in order to foster greater worldwide brand awareness in a similar manner.
The SkyTeam livery is a rather uniform one, with a silver fuselage and a dark blue tail, while oneworld members largely keep their normal livery but have a corresponding large decal at the front of the fuselage. Both paint schemes are pictured above.
One founder has since left the Star Alliance
Indeed, the move came as a result of a multi-faceted investment in Scandinavian Airlines by, among others, the wider Air France-KLM Group.
Given that both the French and Dutch flag carriers are members of the SkyTeam alliance, it was a logical step, therefore, when SAS joined SkyTeam a day after its departure from the Star Alliance, on September 1st, 2024, with minimal effects for frequent flyers.
25 members today
Austrian Airlines and Singapore Airlines joined the party shortly after the turn of the century, in March and April of 2000 respectively, followed by the respective arrivals of Asiana Airlines and LOT Polish Airlines in March and October of 2003.
The European influx continued in the following years, with Croatia Airlines coming onboard in 2004, TAP Air Portugal in 2005, and SWISS International Air Lines in 2006.
