SURPRISE: SAS taken over by Air France KLM consortium, leaving Star, joining SkyTeam

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• Vit says:

  3 Oct3 October 21:02

  I have been following the development a bit myself but never expect this to happen. I guess the sentiment is slightly different following covid, chapter 11, etc. The locals and colleagues were once proud of their flag carrier but did mention not much hope after their shares were wiped out.

  Intrigued to know how this turns out to be (I am an optimist and feel it is better overall) but will need to plan my EB point redemption game if things start going south!

• SteveCroydon says:

  3 Oct3 October 21:42

  What about EU competition requirements? They will need to approve the deal.

• PeteM says:

  3 Oct3 October 21:44

  TAP to IAG now then?

  • meta says:

    3 Oct3 October 22:18

    Very good fit. I guess IAG airlines can learn from TAP the fine art of ignoring the customers and turning planes mid-air to avoid their seizure.

  • Rhys says:

    3 Oct3 October 22:33

    Is TAP at all attractive without a new Lisbon airport though? The experience is horrendous and there’s no room for growth.

    • G says:

      3 Oct3 October 22:51

      Feeds into their transatlantic / americas monopoly; TAP have a young fleet (two/three A321 daily LRs from Lisbon to Newark) and have now started running a profit.

      • meta says:

        3 Oct3 October 23:16

        Also good West/South African network – Angola in particular which BA used to serve… although I agree a lot of cross over with Iberia and BA (Dakar, Accra, Johannesburg…)

        • Nick says:

          3 Oct3 October 23:39

          I’d be amazed if TP went through competition clearance, given the south american reach. Famous last words of course, but it’s very hard to see that working without a huge divestment somewhere. SK less of an issue because there isn’t the same concentration of operations in one particular market.

        • newbz says:

          3 Oct3 October 23:46

          Let’s not forget about Sao Tome and Principe.

        • meta says:

          4 Oct4 October 00:11

          @newbz I’d love to be able to redeem Avios for STP, but given that route has substantial number of flights a week via Accra, can’t see that sitting well with either BA or within EU competition law. If it goes head, there will be a lot of chopping.

    • Dubious says:

      4 Oct4 October 01:56

      The buyer of TAP is expected to grow connectivity at Porto. So it won’t all be focused on a Lisbon.

    • Track says:

      4 Oct4 October 20:18

      There is a room for growth at Lisbon airport, Rob. It’s just the experience is horrendous.

      International side of the airport is very under-developed.

      LIS lounge, shared by all airlines and Priority Pass is also ghm, very basic. TAP lounge next door only marginally better — does not give a reason to choose flying TAP.

      Fares though are not cheap. TAP is right on their revenue management, forget about travelling cheaper than 100 quid one-way, and very easily tickets are several hundreds.

• swayinghips_pryinglips says:

  3 Oct3 October 21:50

  star alliance is falling apart. you just love to see it. hopefully Singapore, Ana, Eva and turkish see the light and come to one world. the rest can rot for all I care.

  never thought much of sas personally. a poor man’s finnair I say and have always been in their shadow. hopefully they merge with the Dutch and paint all the planes royal blue.

  • Chris W says:

    3 Oct3 October 22:55

    A poor man’s Finnair is exactly how I would describe SAS too.

  • AL says:

    3 Oct3 October 23:35

    Always was a fan of *’s service consistency, to be honest. Suspect LH members will keep it afloat.

  • Graham says:

    4 Oct4 October 03:37

    ANA will never join OneWorld while JAL is a member.

    • Jonathan says:

      4 Oct4 October 09:25

      ANA could also move to SkyTeam, although this’d only happen if there’s a good reason, and themselves and JAL are rarely mentioned here on HfP, despite Japan being a favourite destination

      • Rob says:

        4 Oct4 October 09:37

        Big feature on the new JAL seat on the way. We’d do more with them if they engaged – ANA in London is very proactive.

        • Jonathan says:

          4 Oct4 October 09:46

          Sooo we’d probably see more articles focusing on experiences that say AA offer if they wanted to cooperate more than what they do so, which is currently 0% !

          It’s in an airline’s’ interest to ensure that people know what they’ve got on offer, then more and more people would book to experience it

        • Rhys says:

          4 Oct4 October 09:53

          That’s what you’d assume, but clearly airline marketing and PR departments think differently!

          We have reached out to JAL numerous times over the years but never get very far!

      • Michael says:

        4 Oct4 October 15:52

        OK I’ll contribute 🙂 – Flew to Tokyo on Avios in economy in the summer to/from LHR – brutal long flights in economy thanks to Russian airspace being closed off.

        For several reasons (down to BA) it was out ANA, back JAL – interestingly ANA flew East and round below Russia, JAL flew back over Canada (so I can tell the kids they flew all the way round the world !)

        Both were “good” but JALs seats had noticeably more legroom and overall I preferred their offering – planes seemed newer, decor fresher and food edible with both. (I’m not much of a flying connoisseur – I just want a seat to get me there and back and I’ll eat pretty much anything put in front of me)

• Katrina says:

  3 Oct3 October 22:00

  Skyteam really is the basket case group of airlines. To be fair, Air France are very good, but pulled down by the poor setup at CDG unless you know what you are doing. KLM were great but have gone all woke. Boxes of soya beans in biz, plus ‘meat-free’ days blah de blah. Delta. Yep. Virgin. Didn’t really have a choice as the bearded one hid all the profits on his island. (Possibly :-). OK: Virgin and Air France deserve better. But the rest?!?!

  • G says:

    3 Oct3 October 22:51

    Tarom???

  • Jonathan says:

    4 Oct4 October 09:55

    You’re not looking at wider range of SkyTeam airlines, so get some facts straight first or make sure that your claim has basis. Thanks

    • Rob says:

      4 Oct4 October 10:35

      SkyTeam is arguably now better than oneworld for getting you out of Europe, given the mix of Virgin, AF, KLM and Delta.

      What it lacks is a network Asian carrier of the scale of Cathay or JAL. Vietnam, Garuda and the Chinese carriers aren’t comparable.

      The best way to compare the alliances is via their five strongest members. SkyTeam isn’t any worse for having Czech Airlines in it, it’s just that it gives the perception that it is mainly smaller carriers.

      • Peter says:

        4 Oct4 October 12:16

        Exactly. The Leftover Alliance!

      • sigma421 says:

        4 Oct4 October 14:54

        Korean post-merger might come close to offering that?

  • executiveclubber says:

    4 Oct4 October 10:20

    Poor you, being forced to avoid animal abuse.

  • Tim P says:

    4 Oct4 October 11:22

    Skyteam manages to regularly make third place in “Global Alliance” awards.

  • A says:

    4 Oct4 October 11:47

    You forget saudia. I think maybe their medieval attitude is right up your strasse.

• Bernard says:

  3 Oct3 October 22:03

  ‘T he market was wrong’
  Not correct.
  There’s a gossipy and usually wrong guy at Barcap who spreads incorrect rumours. He thought that. He’s not the market!
  He also thought Monarch was for real, Global Airlines will be a success, and while at HSBC , easyJet shares were worth double their rights issue price (below it now).
  He thought Alex cruz should be next ceo of SAS cause the two were buddies from clicksir (the ex BA CEO fired cruz was allegedly fired in disgrace by the present IAG ceo for selling BA’s art collection on the cheap so his wife allegedly made commission on the sale).
  So I detail this to show how misleading this guy is. A total gossip but a spreader of false information on many occasions

• Jim Lovejoy says:

  3 Oct3 October 22:20

  Interesting. I wonder how long until SAS will be a full partner with Virgin Atlantic, not only earning points as now, but also bookable with points.

  It could make Virgin Atlantic points marginally more useful.

• His Holyness says:

  3 Oct3 October 22:27

  BA obviously shafted bmi lifetime Gold’s but I reckon it’s possible FB might offer Lifetime Plat.
  I bet we will see the first proper status match campaign since BD though. I predict A3, BA and LH to all match. In addition to Flying Blue of course.

  • Kevin says:

    4 Oct4 October 10:05

    Sorry, newbie here. What’s FB?

    • Andrew says:

      4 Oct4 October 10:11

      Flying Blue.

    • Jonathan says:

      4 Oct4 October 10:13

      It’s not social media mega giant platform Facebook !

      FB is FlyingBlue, a SkyTeam loyalty program, its main members are AirFrance & KLM, although there some more, I can’t remember the full list off the top of my head…

      • QFFlyer says:

        4 Oct4 October 13:13

        SB (Aircalin) also uses Flying Blue – not the weirdest thing in the world, New Cal are a French Overseas Territory of course, but it’s odd seeing it on this side of the world (and hearing the occasional bilingual announcement including French at Melbourne Airport is a but of a novelty). That said, I assume most people use Qantas points to book SB here.

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