Taiwan’s Starlux Airlines is a fast growing airline that was founded just before the pandemic. The airline now has a fleet of A321neos, A330-900neos, and A350-900s, and is quickly expanding. In terms of service to the United States, the airline flies to Los Angeles (LAX), Phoenix (PHX), San Francisco (SFO), and Seattle (SEA), with plans to add even more routes.
One of the challenges that Starlux has faced is its lack of airline partners, limiting the carrier’s reach beyond its own route network. The airline does have a loyalty partnership with Alaska Airlines, but that’s about it. Then it has an interline agreement with American, but that’s really a very basic level of cooperation.
For the past couple of years, Starlux’s CEO has made it clear that his airline would apply to join the oneworld alliance. Interestingly, there has been almost no news on that front since then. However, we did just learn that Philippine Airlines is joining oneworld, something that wasn’t necessarily expected.
So what’s the latest with Starlux potentially joining the oneworld alliance? Well, it appears that Starlux is facing some challenges with this, for exactly the reason I suspected…
Why it makes sense for Starlux Airlines to join oneworld
Starlux hasn’t at all been secretive about its desire to join the oneworld alliance. The oneworld alliance is the natural hit for Starlux, given the competitive landscape in Taiwan — China Airlines belongs to SkyTeam, and EVA Air belongs to Star Alliance.
There’s no way either of those alliances would have two airlines from Taiwan, so it makes sense that Taiwan’s third full service airline would join the third alliance.
For the most part, the global alliances have lost a bit of steam in the past decade or so, as we’ve seen fewer airlines added than when alliances were still a newer concept. Airlines have largely instead focused on joint ventures and other kinds of partnerships.
But still, when you look at the overall competitive landscape, it sure seems logical for Starlux to join oneworld. For that matter, oneworld is the alliance that has had the most momentum, and since 2025, we’ve seen three new airlines join — Fiji Airways, Hawaiian Airlines (really due to being merged into Alaska), and Oman Air.
The problem with Starlux Airlines joining oneworld
We know that Starlux Airlines wants to join the oneworld alliance. I’m sure the oneworld alliance at large would love for Starlux to join. After all, the alliance makes money from member airline fees, so the more members, the more money. There’s only one major issue — veto rights.
The oneworld alliance has four founding airlines that are still in business, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, and Qantas. One of the perks of being a founding member of the alliance is that you get veto rights on new members joining.
As you can imagine, this can create a conflict of interest — it could be in the best interest of the alliance at large for a new member to join, while an individual founding member might not view it that way.
Back in 2024, I had guessed that Cathay Pacific may veto Starlux joining the alliance:
- Taiwan and Hong Kong are very close to one another geographically, and the airlines potentially compete in quite a few markets, and for all kinds of passenger flows
- Taiwan is Cathay Pacific’s third highest traffic market, after mainland China and Japan, so the airline wants to “defend” its traffic there, including those who are willing to transit through Hong Kong to stay within Cathay Pacific’s larger network
- Keep in mind that American Airlines invested in China Southern, and China Southern left SkyTeam, but the airline hasn’t joined oneworld; I suspect that’s for the same reason, which is that Cathay Pacific didn’t want the airline to join, given how close Guangzhou is to Hong Kong
This is no longer just a theory, though, and it has been confirmed by Starlux’s CEO. During a recent shareholders meeting, he confirmed that Cathay Pacific is opposed to Starlux joining oneworld (thanks to Vincent for flagging this).
However, he is slightly more optimistic about the prospects, stating that he thinks it will take some time to resolve this, but in the end, he hopes that the opinions of other alliance members will prevail, and that Starlux will be able to join.
Really the alliance veto rights that founding airlines have is probably the biggest thing standing in the way of alliances growing. For example, Alaska joined the oneworld alliance a few years back, and that was only possible because of American’s support, as the two airlines launched a close partnership.
Who knows, maybe a compromise can be worked out here. After all, a lot of airline partnerships are looking a bit different after the pandemic than they would have several years back. Or if alliance membership isn’t possible, maybe we’ll increasingly see Starlux introduce more reciprocal agreements.
Bottom line
Starlux Airlines wants to join the oneworld alliance, and it would be a logical fit, given that the carrier’s two competitors in Taiwan belong to SkyTeam and Star Alliance. While Starlux has been pursuing alliance membership, unfortunately it hasn’t proven to be so straightforward.
Cathay Pacific is a founding member of oneworld, and has veto rights on any new members. Airlines tend to want to prevent competitors from joining their alliance. So just as Cathay Pacific didn’t want China Southern to join oneworld, we’re now learning that the airline has similar feelings about Starlux joining.
Interestingly, Cathay Pacific clearly didn’t feel the same about Philippine Airlines, despite it soon becoming Cathay Pacific’s geographically closest positioned fellow alliance member. That’s ultimately not too surprising, since the airline probably isn’t “premium” competition in the same way, and the two airlines even have a limited partnership, as it stands.
What do you make of Starlux wanting to join oneworld, and Cathay Pacific trying to block it?
