In October 2023, we learned that Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) would get an investment from Air France-KLM, and would leave the Star Alliance in favor of SkyTeam. There’s an exciting update, as this process is now complete, so I wanted to cover all the details of this major development.
Continue reading: Scandinavian Airlines Joins SkyTeam, Gets Air France-KLM Investment
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
Along the line of what has happened with Avios, it would be particularly nice if more airlines were to adopt Flying Blue points and if those points were freely transferable/usable among member airlines. And, let's hope Etihad joins SkyTeam and the Flying Blue points system.
If SAS decides to destroy eurobonus you'll see a lot of people taking a train or flying to Frankfurt to fly with Lufthansa. Alot of us Nordic people are worried that AFKLM will destroy the brand and turn SAS into a low cost transavia which shouldn't be allowed to happen
SAS fled to SkyTeam and accepted Air France's investment (in which DL has an equity investment) because the Star alliance kept SK - and other Star carriers as red-headed stepchildren to protect the Lufthansa Group's lock on Europe within Star. LH Group wants no European carrier in the JV that it can't control.
Alliances in Europe are changing. ITA will end up in Star but is far less useful for connections to Europe. The EU is not allowing IAG to buy out Air Europa so they remain in play. TP could potentially switch alliances....
The focus on "WIIFM" as expressed in the statement about the value of alliances is why this site and others gets basic business decisions about airlines wrong so much of the time. All global EU and US airlines are for-profit and make decisions to maximize their profitability. Giving away the most to retain customers is a sign that a company can't generate revenue o par with competitors.
Yeah, it is odd how Ben seems to judge an alliance based purely on benefits, especially when most of these benefits are lackluster at best.
Here’s a novel idea… how about judging an alliance based on the quality/service of the airlines contained within?
Hi Tim,
When bashing LH for not letting SAS join the UA/AC/LH TATL JV you should keep in mind that ITA was not allowed to join the DL/AF/KL TATL JV…
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Hi Ben,
Will you do an analysis of using Eurobonus vs. Flying Blue? That would be useful for those who were using those two programs.
I had a look today since you can already book AFKLM with Eurobonus, it seems that there are still a few sweet spots vs flying Blue since it's not dynamic pricing
Those are my findings:
- Europe to Turkey, Armenia and Georgia (SAS put them as in intra Europe)
- Europe to Sao Tome, Rwanda, Tanzania, Seychelles (SAS put them in north / central Africa) and those routes are pricey in cash
Well, waited until Sept. 1 to enter Skyteam Elite+ FF number into SAS reservation.....while the portal shows the ST airlines as a choice now, all entries seem to trigger "please enter a valid number" when trying to save...
@Tim they did not really flee. SK has been a financial mess since forever. Air France KLM decided to buy the scraps after yet another near collapse, and accordingly they had to follow their new lords and masters. So probably a bit of a forced hand of who is paying the rescue this time.
I flew SK today (Sep 1st) and they did make a big thing out of the change in their announcements. But in most ways, everything worked well at 6am on day one.
Alitalia was a part of the AF/DL/KL joint venture but was dropped as AZ headed toward restructuring and was replaced in the JV by VS.
in contrast, SK was never a part of the Star JV and you would be kidding yourself if you don't think that the Star non-JV orphans aren't considering what they could be in other alliances.
the SkyTeam JV is a profit-sharing JV so they have much less tolerance for financially weak players. SK should be very well financially positioned to compete with any other global carrier in Europe.
and you have to ask how well SK would have fared if it had been a part of a JV and not left to deal w/ Norwegian and their failed strategies on its own.
Operationally, there is no reason to think that SK won't be the same today as it was yesterday.
It is a new day for them in terms of having a seat at the table with the big boys.
And it is certain that AF/DL/KL and even VS will do what is possible to help ensure SK's success and unique additions to the SkyTeam JV which SK never had the opportunity to demonstrate with Star.
And since LH is investing a wad of money in AZ after its restructuring, it all came down to a game of chess as to who would lose and would gain what.... and what is still on the table to horsetrade around in the future.
European media says that LH's CEO is headed to Lisbon to talk about a minority investment in TAP and will keep the investment small in order to avoid EU approval.
Air Europa is the biggest airline that is in play in Europe and is in the "outer tier" of SkyTeam airlines.
If LH goes for TP and IAG is blocked from going after Air Europa, it makes it much harder for AE's owners to look elsewhere for a partner or investment.
It should be noted that while ITA will remain a SkyTeam member for a few more months, there doesn't seem to be a plan to implement any cooperation between Volare and Eurobonus. There are no earning charts and websites ignore each other programme. Not surprising given how poor ITA's participation in SkyTeam is in the first place but something to be vary of.
@Gg Gg - I really don't understand this sentiment. First of all, Flying Blue is far superior programme in terms of benefits compared to Eurobonus and so is AFKL as an airline. Not sure why would AFKL transform SAS into Transavia but it wouldn't be much of a loss anyone since SAS is essentially an expensive Ryanair at the moment. If anything, the deal makes it more likely for SAS to revert to being a proper legacy carrier with service levels matching those of AFKL.
Train from Oslo to Malmo, transfer and cross the Oresund Bridge to Copenhagen, transfer at Copenhagen to Frankfurt.
AMS is only about 3 degrees south in latitude than SAS’s main hub (CPH), so AMS is sort of a Northern Europe hub too. Actually, AMS has long been one of the best airports for getting from the US to Scandinavia’s main cities. And the guy who is SAS’s CEO and took it into bankruptcy protection into the US and out of it started his Scandinavian airline career by working for AF-KL. That is when I first encountered him — when he was working for AF-KL in Sweden.
The move of SAS away from Star Alliance and into SkyTeam is predictably going to lead to a worsening of the frequent flyer program as miles/points earnings and redemptions mean new contracts under newer (and likely higher) prices than the old contracts it had with Star Alliance airlines for mileage/points earning/spending.
I really hope that US and European regulators refuse to allow SAS to be consumed into the DL-AF/KL-Virgin Atlantic revenue-sharing joint venture, since that will make things worse for consumers.
SAS doesn't excite me at all. Their product within Europe is WORSE than KLM. SAS sells intra-Europe business-class but, in reality, it's an economy "extra" product. No blocked middle seat, awful drinks, and awful food. Until SAS makes changes, I'll keep flying through CDG on Air France.
I'm sorry, but SAS is worse at least within Europe than KLM. SAS is only better than Transavia. Air France is 100% better than KLM and 200% better than SAS. None of my Swedish friends who are millionaires (in US $) fly SAS. They choose Swiss, Austrian or Lufthansa,
One interesting implication is that with SAS’ exit, all Star Alliance members now have only white liveries while SkyTeam increases its lead as the alliance with the most non-white liveries.
That said, when ITA moves in the reverse direction (SkyTeam to Star), it will become the first Star member since BMI — which ceased operations in 2012 — to have a blue livery, and one of very few with a non-white livery (pre-2013 Avianca comes to mind)!
SAS does not sell an "intra-Europe business class" nor does it advertise the product as such. It's called SAS Plus and is clearly a Premium Economy product.
@Tim, if they are operationally the same today as they were yesterday, then it is only a matter of time before we need a fresh chapter 11.
They were not part of the UA/LH JV, and they are not a member of the DL/AF JV. They have not applied yet, and so far Jetblue has managed to block even the DL codeshare agreement. Nothing new, nothing better for SK just different partners.
Hopefully the chapter 11, has fixed some of the structural cost issues. But let's see.
Not true. When you book a business-class airfare with a connecting flight, the SAS Plus product is often ticketed into business-class.
Of course you have every right to be proud of your special black livery, as your username suggests. But Air New Zealand’s standard livery is indeed white, not black! By that token one might include Qatar’s ex-Cathay and Virgin Australia 777-300ERs to have white liveries, even though the standard livery is grey.
thank you.
CPH is no more part of northern Europe than AMS is.
SAS could not make it as a free agent in a sea of JVs - and that is true with TP and Air Europa and every other mid-size airline.
They aren't going back on big JVs so the only real outcome is to balance them enough that there is still competition.
Nothing is good for consumers if the companies cease to exist.
I personally don’t know anyone who has ever done such a train trip to get from Oslo to Frankfurt. Seems like it’s only for people with a lot of time to waste and probably not even cheap to do by train unless booking way in advance.
Just Malmo to Oslo S takes like 7-11 hours to do by trains. Faster to drive that stretch than take a train. Then you add in Frankfurt to Malmo by train? I don’t want to even guess how long that takes and what happens if you miss a connection. Berlin is closer to Malmo than Frankfurt and even that Berlin train route has struggled. People in these parts will continue to fly.
Do other people remember that AF-KLM had a c 25% stake in Alitalia around 15 years ago, and they too couldn’t make it fly?
From what I know, AMS got restrictions about slots. There are recent news about slots and capacity reductions from the government recently
I don't know either about CDG, but they also got restrictions politically
AF/KL needs backup, and relief hub. Buying SK into AF/KL helped them ease the problems a little bit
@CPG-Flyer
Now, DL already got codeshare with SK recently. Even JetBlue objections were rejected