With the February 1 expected date for Malaysian Airlines to join the oneworld alliance rapidly approaching it looks like some of their future partners are getting around to posting earning rates for MH-operated flights. JAL seems to be the first in line, with the earning chart showing up online in the past day or two. Here’s a shot of the important part of the page:
Not so exciting to see so many fares earning only partial credit. Even more worrisome is that there are a number of even cheaper buckets – N, Q, O and G at least – which earn no credit at all in the JAL program. It is also a bit strange to see S listed as a revenue bucket as at least one source I saw suggests that it is an award seat, not revenue. If they are aligning with the other oneworld partners it seems that U and T or X would be the business and economy awards, respectively, so maybe S is revenue now.
Anyways, just one of several partners who will need to update their details by Friday, but it is a start. Expect others to follow soon enough.
But how strong of an indicator is JAL for what other alliance members will show us?
I am also interested as to how reward flights will be and if they will expand their market with the help of oneworld.
From what I’ve seen of other charts, Zach, it looks like JAL was a pretty good indicator. 🙁