By Pratap John/Chief Business Reporter

Qatar Airways has joined oneworld, a premier global alliance of airlines, which will significantly expand the national carrier’s worldwide reach and strengthen its competitive offering.
From today, Qatar Airways will be offering oneworld’s full range of services and benefits, which include frequent flyer privileges and rewards across the premier global alliance.
Qatar Airways has become the first major airline from the Gulf region attached to a global airline alliance by joining oneworld.
At a ceremony to mark its entry into oneworld, held at Hamad International Airport, which will open soon as Qatar Airways’ new home base, Qatar Airways “unveiled” the first aircraft in its fleet to be decorated in a special oneworld livery – with the Boeing 777-300 becoming the first aircraft to “land” at the new airport.
Under the patronage of HE the Prime Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa al-Thani, the ceremony was hosted by Qatar Airways chief executive officer Akbar al-Baker and attended by CEOs and senior executives from all other oneworld member airlines, including Willie Walsh, chief executive of IAG, the parent company of oneworld’s British Airways and Iberia and also of Vueling, which is not part of the alliance, and oneworld CEO Bruce Ashby.
The national carrier joins oneworld just one year after receiving its invitation to join, which makes its induction into oneworld one of the fastest in the alliance’s history. A more typical timeline for an airline to comply with the many membership requirements of oneworld is 18 to 24 months.
For Qatar Airways, joining oneworld marks the latest achievement in its 16-year history. One of just seven carriers worldwide rated five-star by the Skytrax airline quality agency and the organisation’s “Airline of the Year 2011 and 2012” and “runner-up 2013”, Qatar Airways is the only one among the major Gulf carriers to join any of the global airline alliances.
Becoming part of oneworld, which holds more “best alliance” awards than any of its competitors, will strengthen Qatar Airways’ competitiveness, enabling it to offer customers an unrivalled alliance global network served by partners that include leading airlines from every region.
Qatar Airways, which serves more than 130 destinations in 70 countries across the Middle East, Europe, Africa, North and South America, Asia and Australasia, is oneworld’s second member airline based in the Middle East.  It makes oneworld the leading alliance in one of the world’s fastest growing regions for air travel demand.
More than 20 of its destinations and five countries – Ethiopia, Iran, Rwanda, Serbia and Tanzania – will be new to the oneworld map.
More significantly, Qatar Airways will substantially strengthen the alliance’s customer offering by providing superior routing alternatives across many hundreds of city pairs. For example, passengers flying between Asia and southern Europe or between Asia and Africa will now have convenient one-stop connections not previously available within the oneworld network.
Worldwide, with the other airlines lining up to join, oneworld will serve almost a thousand airports in more than 150 countries, with 14,000 daily departures, carry some 475mn passengers a year on a combined fleet of some 3,300 aircraft and generate $140bn annual revenues.
Qatar Airways’ entry into oneworld completes what has been one of the biggest projects in the airline’s history, with working groups covering some 20 streams of activity, bringing its various internal processes and procedures in line with the alliance’s requirements and running extensive employee training and communications programmes.  
British Airways has been supporting Qatar Airways through its alliance implementation project, as its oneworld sponsor airline, with backing from the central oneworld team.
Since accepting its invitation to join the alliance a year ago, Qatar Airways has expanded its code-sharing relationships to two established oneworld partners – American Airlines and Malaysia Airlines.
To encourage travellers to visit Qatar Airways’ home region, the alliance launched its new oneworld Visit Middle East pass, offering “attractive” flexible fares on flights within the region bought in conjunction with a flight on a oneworld carrier to the region.  
Besides flights on Qatar Airways, it includes all other oneworld schedules within the region, including sectors on Royal Jordanian, British Airways and Cathay Pacific.  
These new fares will be available for sale from Friday when Qatar Airways’ global network will be covered by oneworld’s full, market-leading range of alliance fares and sales products.