Mexicana is to join oneworld®. Mexico and Central America's leading airline today accepted a formal invitation to become part of the world's leading quality airline alliance after being unanimously elected on board by the grouping's existing ten member airlines late Wednesday evening Finnish time. Its subsidiary Click Mexicana will join at the same time, as an affiliate member of oneworld. So Mexicana and Click Mexicana will be flying as part of oneworld in 2009, when they will start offering the alliance's full range of services and benefits to their own customers and those from their new oneworld partners. For Mexicana (airline code MX), joining oneworld will strengthen its competitive offering and its financial position. For oneworld, adding Mexicana will expand the alliance's network in Mexico and Central America, and enable it to build further on its positions as the leading airline grouping serving Latin America and the leading Spanish-speaking alliance. Mexico is the world's 11th most populous country, the 12th biggest economy and the seventh most popular tourist destination, attracting more than 20 million foreign visitors a year. Mexicana is the biggest non-US airline operating at Los Angeles, which is its biggest hub outside Mexico. Mexicana with the Click Mexicana network will add 26 destinations to the oneworld map - 24 in Mexico plus Bakersfield (California, USA) and Edmonton (Canada). oneworld is already the only global alliance with any airline members based in South America - through LAN Airlines and its sisters LAN Argentina, LAN Ecuador and LAN Peru. American Airlines is the leading airline serving the region internationally, and Iberia is the leading carrier between Latin America and Europe. Mexicana and Click Mexicana serve 63 destinations in 11 countries. Mexicana itself operates a fleet of 62 aircraft, mostly Airbus A320 family aircraft and it has 300 flights a day. Click Mexicana operates 18 Fokker 100s, making 115 departures a day. Mexicana's home base is Mexico City, the world's second most populous city. Its other hubs include Cancun, also favoured by Finnish travellers and Guadalajara. Mexicana boarded 9 million passengers in 2007, with Click Mexicana carrying another 2.2 million. Between them, they employ 6,725 staff. Mexicana's addition will extend oneworld's number of Latin American destinations to more than 130. Globally, its addition will expand the alliance's network to approaching 700 destinations in nearly 150 countries, with a combined fleet of 2,350 aircraft operating almost 9,500 flights a day, carrying 333 million passengers, with annual revenues of US$100 billion (64 billion euros). In addition to Finnair, the oneworld alliance includes American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific from Hong Kong, Iberia from Spain, JAL from Japan, LAN from Chile, Malev from Hungary, Qantas from Australia and Royal Jordanian. Finnair Plc Communications 9.4.2008 Additional information: Finnair Media Desk, tel. +358 9 818 4020 Photographs and member airline logos at www.oneworld.com/gallery news section. Video b-roll of member airlines as AirTime TV, Martin White, tel. +44 7831 270534 or martin@airtimetv.co.uk