dailynewsnblog
The three global airline alliances are not static organizations. In 2026 alone, ITA Airways switched from SkyTeam to Star Alliance, Hawaiian Airlines joined oneworld following its merger with 
Alaska Airlines, and Asiana Airlines will leave Star Alliance in December when it merges into SkyTeam member Korean Air. Each move reshapes the balance between the three blocs, and none of them happened in isolation from broader changes in how airlines structure their commercial partnerships.
The membership shifts are only part of the picture. Airlines are increasingly building deep bilateral partnerships and joint ventures outside the traditional alliance framework. United and JetBlue launched a partnership linking two carriers from entirely different competitive positions. Riyadh Air decided not to join any alliance at all, signing individual partnerships with carriers across multiple alliance blocs instead. Here is what changed in 2026, what the new partnerships look like, and what role the three alliances still play in a market that is moving toward more targeted commercial arrangements.
Three Alliance Membership Changes In A Single Year
Three airlines changed alliance membership in 2026, each for a different reason and each affecting a different alliance. Together they represent the most significant year of alliance reshuffling since SAS Scandinavian Airlines left Star Alliance for SkyTeam in 2024.
ITA Airways joined Star Alliance on April 1, becoming the 26th member of the alliance and the fifth airline in the Lufthansa Group to hold membership. ITA had previously been a SkyTeam member, joining in 2021 as the successor to Alitalia. After Lufthansa acquired a 41% stake in ITA in January 2025, the airline left SkyTeam and spent several months in a transition period before formally entering Star Alliance. The switch gave Star Alliance a hub carrier at Rome Fiumicino and cost SkyTeam its Italian member. ITA’s Volare frequent flyer program was shut down on March 30, 2026, with members migrating to Lufthansa’s Miles & More.
Hawaiian Airlines joined oneworld on April 22, the same month as ITA’s Star Alliance entry. The move followed Hawaiian’s merger with Alaska Airlines, which was completed in September 2024. Alaska had been a oneworld member since 2021, and Hawaiian’s addition made it the third US carrier in the alliance alongside Alaska and American Airlines. Hawaiian continues to operate under its own brand and livery but adopted Alaska’s flight codes on April 21, with HawaiianMiles members transitioning to the Atmos Rewards program.
Asiana Airlines will leave Star Alliance on December 16 at 11:59 PM Korea Standard Time. The following day, Asiana ceases to exist as a separate airline and merges into Korean Air, a founding member of SkyTeam. The merger was initiated in 2020 and received final regulatory approval in May 2026 after competition authorities in the EU and US imposed conditions including the divestiture of Asiana’s cargo business. Star Alliance will drop from 26 to 25 members and lose its only South Korean carrier. Korean Air was already in SkyTeam, so the merger does not add a new member to that alliance. It removes a competitor from Star Alliance.
Joint Ventures Over Alliance-Wide Cooperation
The three global alliances were built around a model of broad, multilateral cooperation. Member airlines agree to shared lounge access, reciprocal frequent flyer earnings, through-check-in on connecting itineraries, and coordinated schedules at overlapping hubs. The benefits are wide but shallow. A Star Alliance Gold member can access a lounge in any member airline’s facility worldwide, but the commercial relationship between any two Star Alliance carriers on a specific route may be limited to a codeshare or an interline agreement with no revenue sharing.
Joint ventures operate differently. In a joint venture, two or three airlines coordinate pricing, scheduling, capacity, and revenue sharing on a specific set of routes, typically a geographic corridor like the transatlantic or transpacific. The Delta/Air France-KLM/Virgin Atlantic transatlantic JV is the most established example. The three carriers collectively operate over 300 daily North Atlantic departures, share revenue on those routes regardless of which airline operates each flight, and coordinate schedules to eliminate redundant departures and optimize connection times. The commercial integration is far deeper than anything the SkyTeam alliance provides on its own.
The joint venture model has become the primary competitive tool on the world’s most profitable long-haul corridors. The American Airlines/British Airways/Iberia/Finnair transatlantic JV competes directly against the Delta-led partnership from the oneworld side. The United/Lufthansa Group transatlantic JV does the same as Star Alliance. On the transpacific, similar arrangements exist between Delta and Korean Air, United and ANA, and American and JAL. In each case, the joint venture produces a level of commercial coordination that the alliance framework was never designed to deliver, which is why the most significant competitive moves in international aviation now happen at the JV level rather than the alliance level.
United And JetBlue’s Blue Sky Partnership
The United-JetBlue partnership announced on May 29, 2025, does not fit the alliance or joint venture model. It is a bilateral commercial arrangement between two carriers that are not in the same alliance, do not share a joint venture, and were not previously connected by any formal partnership. JetBlue is not a member of any global alliance. United is a founding member of Star Alliance. The Blue Sky partnership links them commercially without either carrier changing its alliance affiliation.
The partnership has three components. First, reciprocal loyalty integration allows MileagePlus members to earn and redeem miles on JetBlue flights and TrueBlue members to earn and redeem points on United flights. Reciprocal elite benefits, including priority boarding, preferred seating, extra legroom access, and same-day flight changes, went live in early 2026. Second, both airlines sell each other’s flights on their respective websites and apps, making it possible for a passenger to book a JetBlue itinerary through United’s platform or vice versa. Third, JetBlue will provide United access to up to seven daily round-trip slots at JFK Terminal 6 beginning in 2027, with a net-neutral exchange of eight flight timings at Newark.
The JFK slot access is the most strategically significant element for United. The airline has not operated at JFK since consolidating its New York operations at Newark years ago, and JFK’s slot restrictions have made a return difficult. The Blue Sky partnership gives United a path back into JFK without acquiring an airline or purchasing slots on the open market. For JetBlue, the partnership connects its East Coast leisure network to United’s global system, giving TrueBlue members access to international destinations they could not previously reach through JetBlue alone. The arrangement demonstrates that commercially meaningful partnerships can be built entirely outside the alliance structure.
Riyadh Air’s Case For Skipping Alliances Entirely
Riyadh Air has taken a different approach from the start. The Saudi carrier, backed by the Public Investment Fund and led by CEO Tony Douglas, formerly of Etihad Airways, has stated that it has no immediate plans to join any of the three global alliances. Instead, the airline is building a network of individual bilateral partnerships with carriers across multiple alliance blocs and with unaligned airlines.
The partnership list already spans several of the world’s largest airline groups. Riyadh Air signed a memorandum of understanding with Air France-KLM in June 2025 covering interline connectivity, codesharing, and loyalty cooperation. Air France-KLM is a SkyTeam carrier. Riyadh Air signed a similar MoU with Singapore Airlines in June 2024, covering interline connectivity on each other’s services. Singapore Airlines is a Star Alliance member. Riyadh Air also partnered with Turkish Airlines, another Star Alliance carrier, on interline agreements, codesharing, and reciprocal frequent flyer earning. None of these partnerships require Riyadh Air to join any alliance, and collectively they connect the airline to carriers in two different alliance blocs.
The strategy mirrors what Etihad Airways has done for over a decade. Etihad has never joined an alliance, instead building a web of codeshare, equity, and commercial partnerships with individual carriers including American Airlines, Japan Airlines, and Virgin Australia, among others. For a new airline launching into a market where Saudi Arabia’s existing flag carrier Saudia is already a SkyTeam member, joining the same alliance would create internal competition for the same partnership benefits. Partnering bilaterally with carriers across all three alliances gives Riyadh Air access to a broader range of networks than any single alliance membership would provide, without the obligations and exclusivity that come with formally joining one.
What Alliances Still Provide That Bilateral Deals Do Not
The shift toward joint ventures and bilateral partnerships has not made the three alliances irrelevant. Alliances provide a set of services that no individual partnership or collection of partnerships can replicate at the same scale. A Star Alliance Gold member has lounge access on 26 carriers worldwide. A SkyTeam Elite Plus member has the same across 19 carriers. A oneworld Emerald member across 16. No bilateral partnership between two airlines can offer lounge access in 190 countries.
Through-check-in is another alliance function that bilateral deals handle less efficiently. A passenger flying a three-segment itinerary on three different Star Alliance carriers can check in once at the origin and have baggage transferred through to the final destination under a single ticket. Building the same capability through bilateral interline agreements requires each pair of airlines to negotiate and maintain individual baggage transfer protocols, which is why the seamless multi-carrier itinerary remains one of the alliance’s most practical passenger-facing benefits. Round-the-world fare products, which allow passengers to fly a multi-stop itinerary across an alliance’s full network on a single ticket at a fixed price, are also exclusive to the alliance structure and have no bilateral equivalent.
The alliances are adapting rather than disappearing. Star Alliance launched its connecting partners program, which allows non-member airlines to integrate into the alliance network at specific hubs without full membership. SkyTeam and oneworld have introduced similar tiered partnership models. These programs acknowledge that full alliance membership is not the right fit for every carrier while preserving the network benefits that passengers and corporate travel programs rely on. The alliances remain the foundation of global airline cooperation. Joint ventures and bilateral deals are increasingly where the commercial value is concentrated, but they are built on top of the alliance framework rather than replacing it.
