Is Emirates part of SkyTeam, OneWorld, or Star Alliance?
 

Just curious. A friend is flying and I promised to find out

Nope - no alliances

They have agreements with other airlines but they are not a part of any airline alliance.

its high time they do, Now that they have started this new tier miles system and flex/saver tickets, etc, they should also in return present their customer with a better network than what they currently have.

Really ash_ak? Can you really see any of the airlines and alliances wanting to allow EK on their roster? EK tread on the toes of pretty much all the major players out there, and with the way that EK are continuing, they'll have surpassed most in five years.

No point EK being part of an alliance, the only people wanting this are the users of Oneworld, Star Alliance, SkyTeam wanting to stretch their miles further.

groobs, I'm with you. I'm a *G member and a OW Sapphire member. But the last thing I want is EK joining an alliance. And besides, as you have quite rightly pointed out, there's no way BA or LH would even contemplate a partnership with what they consider to be Evil Empire.

I just found out that UAL is a partner with Emirates even though Emirates is not *A.

At least my friend will be earning "almost" a free domestic ticket by earning about 20,000 Mileage Plus miles by taking the flight from LAX to DEL via Dubai

Com'n they probably have the best long haul international network, going to many places that traditional, AF or BA or LH carriers, don't fly to.

Actually EK executives are the ones who stressed on many occasions their rejections of any plans to join any alliance at any time in the future.

Why would they join anyone else - the "founding" members of the other alliances have issues with them...

LH for *A : we all heard about the Germany Landing Rights.
BA for one world : They used to share their FFQ plan with EK in the past, that broke off.

What are Emirates plans then.

The 380 is marketed as a hub to hub and the dreamliner as a point to point, so with the hub to hub wouldnt it make sense to enter into alliances with with smaller regional carriers to get you to your spoke?

With 90 380's on order surley someone has thought well we need to shift this pax from the hubs out to the spokes?

Was hoping something like that would happen with PG but Etihad and airberlin have got in there and now most conections seem to be through Thai *A.

Dubai is EK's hub, all other destinations are their spokes. Whats not to understand?

I for one would like to see EK join the Star Alliance, I would love to be able to travel on SQ & TG and experience their wonderful service and not to mention more convenient schedules and more flights when flying the Asian-far East routes. Always, better to have more options, cant go wrong with that.

Hell would freeze over before the founding members of Star (ie LH and UA) allowed EK to join the alliance. And you can be sure EK wouldn't want to - they've drawn their line in the sand and are going their own way.

Yes, the industry is always changing. And consolidating. But I just don't see this happening.