15 July 2025

When an airline joins an alliance, its Frequent Flyer Program usually becomes more attractive, but it can even be an interesting option for travellers who don’t necessarily fly with that airline, but with its partners.

From this perspective, we examine each program closely. On June 30, it was finally time for Oman Air to join the oneworld alliance. Its Sinbad program was previously only of limited relevance to non-Oman Air customers, as until recently it only had Etihad as a full partner and Qatar Airways – which also sponsored its entry into oneworld – but only for the route between Doha and Muscat. Only recently, Air France and KLM also joined the program.

Thus, there were high hopes that the new oneworld members would give the program a new dimension. This may indeed be the case. The problem, however, is that Oman Air, to this day – more than two weeks after their alliance membership – has not announced anything about the partners on its website.

Hard to understand why an airline spends so much energy over years to join the alliance and then, in the end, shows so little interest in it.