Dragonair today announced that it would become a member of oneworld®, the leading quality global airline alliance, offering the alliance's full range of services and benefits to its customers while enhancing oneworld's coverage in the China Mainland market.

"Becoming an affiliate member of oneworld is an exciting development for Dragonair and is another benefit to result from us joining the Cathay Pacific Group," said Dragonair CEO Kenny Tang. "We are pleased that oneworld customers will be able to connect through Hong Kong to our extensive network of destinations in the China Mainland, together with the other business and leisure destinations we serve within the Asia-Pacific region."

Dragonair's frequent flyers will be able to earn and redeem mileage awards on all oneworld member airlines. And top-tier members will have access to 400 airport lounges worldwide.

"A date has yet to be finalised for our membership, but we are working to achieve this as soon as practically possible," said Mr. Tang.

Dragonair's membership of the alliance will add a total of 15 destinations to oneworld's global network. Twelve of these are in the China Mainland. Dragonair's passenger network covers 28 destinations, including codeshare services, and provides the broadest coverage of any non-Mainland airline in the China Mainland.

The 12 China Mainland cities Dragonair adds to the oneworld network are Changsha, Chongqing, Chengdu, Fuzhou, Guilin, Haikou, Kunming, Nanjing, Ningbo, Sanya, Shenyang and Wuhan. The other three new destinations are Kota Kinabalu in Malaysia, Phnom Penh in Cambodia and Phuket in Thailand. Dragonair will provide oneworld customers with connections to Cambodia for the first time.

Members of other oneworld airlines' frequent flyer programmes will be able to earn and redeem awards and receive all other oneworld benefits on Dragonair. The airline's network will also be covered by oneworld's extensive range of alliance fares.

Members of oneworld are Cathay Pacific, American Airlines, British Airways, Qantas, Iberia, LAN and Finnair. Japan Airlines, Malev Hungarian and Royal Jordanian are scheduled to join in early 2007.

oneworld, the only alliance to enable passengers to fly throughout its network on any combination of carriers using electronic tickets, was voted the World's Leading Airline Alliance for the fourth year running in the 2006 World Travel Awards. Its existing members serve more than 600 destinations in 135 countries.

Dragonair, a Hong Kong-based airline, is part of the Cathay Pacific Group, providing seamless connectivity for passengers to over 100 cities around the globe.