This can only benefit the island as the number of connections worldwide available to airlines flying here will significantly increase as the Middle East airlines patch into the alliances’ worldwide networks.
By how much? To give you an idea, 11-member oneworld, of which Qatar will be the 12th member, currently has 810 destinations in 149 countries carrying 324 million passengers a year.
SkyTeam, with 18 members, carries 537 million passengers to 993 destinations in 186 countries and Star Alliance, with 27 members, carries 678 million passengers across 990 destinations in 193 countries.
Taking Qatar Airways as an individual example it will substantially strengthen oneworld’s customer offering by providing flying between Asia and Southern Europe or between Asia and Africa, creating new convenient one-stop connections through its Doha hub, not previously available within the oneworld network.
Qatar Airways has rapidly built a strong reputation in Thailand for quality. It has actively promoted Phuket as a tourist destination in the last couple of years.
This reputation has come after only 15 years of existence (all of the Middle East carriers are relatively new in airline terms) twice winning the SkyTrax Airline of the Year award.
All three alliances have a large presence in Thailand, particularly through carriers such as Thai Airways International, a Star Alliance founding member and anchor airline at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport.
Giants such as Air France and Cathay Pacific are key members of the other alliances, SkyTeam and oneworld, respectively.
The Middle East airlines either flying into Thailand, or about to come here, are Qatar Airways, which flies in three times daily via Bangkok, which will join Saudia and Middle East Airlines [MEA] in SkyTeam; Royal Jordanian Airlines [oneworld]; Egyptair and Turkish Airlines [Star Alliance, which also has Ethiopian Airlines further west in its stable] in expanding its network through an alliance.
Some Middle East airlines are not in alliances, most notably Emirates, which once vowed never to join up, but has recently entered a formidable alliance with Qantas [and resumes high season flights to Phuket in December]; and Etihad, which currently services Phuket itself and through its recently acquired stake in Air Berlin.
It has a code share agreement with Air France [SkyTeam]. Gulf Air code-shares with American Airlines, the cornerstone carrier of oneworld.
This expansion of the Middle East airlines into places like Phuket may have come at an opportune time.
Tourist Authority of Thailand tourist arrival figures for Thailand for January to May this year show that while visitor arrivals were up from key markets such as Saudi Arabia [27 per cent], Kuwait [21 per cent] and Egypt [22 per cent] the UAE declined [1.58 per cent] and overall there was 2.1-per-cent drop.
This contradicts a previous upward trend in Middle East tourism. For example, in the first nine months of 2010 the total number of Middle East visitors to Thailand was 392,294, more than 20 per cent up, and more than in the whole of 2009.
So the impending arrival of a giant like Emirates and Qatar’s joining of oneworld are bonuses for Phuket.
For example Emirates is based in Dubai, part of the UAE, so we should expect a reversal in those visitor numbers from the first half of the year. Emirates is the Middle East’s largest carrier and fourth largest in the world for scheduled passenger kilometers flown [153 million kilometers in 2011].
The share of Middle East and North Africa airlines in international traffic jumped from 4.8 per cent in 2002 to 11.5 per cent in 2012, making it the fastest growing aviation region.
Despite this growth the Gulf airlines also realise that to secure new routes they need to have the routes and acquisitions of, or shares in, other airlines, approved by national governments.
It is therefore advantageous for Gulf carriers to present themselves as allies of local airlines.
Like all other airlines even deep-pocketed Middle East airlines are prey to the fluctuations in oil prices, currencies and demand so logging into the global reach of an alliance makes sense.
The Middle East airlines’ continual search for new markets – and in the case of Etihad new partners like Air Berlin, which has been flying to Phuket for a number of years – underlines the precarious state of the airline industry itself.
The International Air Transport Association, the industry body, predicts the world’s airline industry will make a combined net profit of US$4.1 billion (B123 billion) this year, less than half the US$8.4 billion achieved in 2011.
Alastair Carthew is a Phuket-based journalist and public relations professional with extensive experience in the aviation industry. alastair@phuketpublicrelations.com