London Heathrow’s plans for a third runway have receiving the backing of the Oneworld, SkyTeam and Star alliances. Last week the UK Airport Commission published a summary of the short and medium term proposals on how to expand the UK’s airport capacity and suggested that one of the alliances could be moved to another south-east airport. However, none of the global alliances want to move and have publicly backed the airport’s three proposals for a third runway. 
British Airways said it wants to stay at Heathrow and has the support of its Oneworld alliance, whose members include American Airlines, Air Berlin and Iberia.
Star Alliance, which includes Lufthansa, Singapore Airlines and United and is due to move into the new Terminal 2 next year, said: “This will allow us to effectively compete with the other alliances in Heathrow and add to the quality of our services, and therefore we do not see any opportunity for us to make a change to another airport.”
SkyTeam, which includes Air France-KLM, Delta Air Lines and China Eastern, has also ruled out leaving Heathrow. Tae Joon Kim, SkyTeam’s Vice President of Airport Services, said: “Relocating to another London or UK airport is not an option for our members.”
