SAS has now joined SkyTeam – what’s the impact in the UK?

Yesterday, Scandinavian airline SAS left Star Alliance and joined the SkyTeam alliance, after Air France KLM bought a stake in the carrier.

SAS, founded in 1946, has its principal hub in Copenhagen with secondary hubs in Oslo and Stockholm. It carries 25 million passengers per year to 135 destinations across Europe, the USA and Asia.

Air France KLM has formed a consortium with financial firms Castlelake and Lind Invest, together with a contribution from the Danish government, to acquire the airline.

Initially, Castlelake will be the largest shareholder with 32% followed by the Danish government with 26%. Air France KLM will cap its shareholding at 19.9% for now. Some equity has been given to existing creditors.

Importantly, Air France KLM has agreed that – after no less than two years – it can take a controlling stake in the airline by acquiring shares from other investors.

Now that it is part of SkyTeam, SAS will restructure itself to provide greater feed into the existing Air France and KLM operations in Paris and Amsterdam.

The SAS EuroBonus loyalty programme is being retained, although it would make sense to fold it into Flying Blue if (when) Air France KLM takes a controlling stake in the airline.

What should you care about as UK HfP reader?

There is obviously a lot of change going on as part of the move to SkyTeam, but the majority isn’t relevant to UK readers.

The key thing, I think, is that SAS now sits inside the same airline alliance, SkyTeam, as Virgin Atlantic.

It was already possible to earn Virgin Points from SAS flights due to a codeshare arrangement. However, redemptions were NOT possible. Now they are.

Earn and spend Virgin Points with SAS

This page of the Virgin Atlantic website shows you the number of tier points you will earn when flying on SAS, and the number of Virgin Points you need for a redemption.

However, as of last night, you couldn’t actually book SAS reward flights on the Virgin Atlantic website.

Lounge access

If you have Gold status with Virgin Atlantic, you will now have access to SAS lounges when flying with the airline – or indeed flying with any other SkyTeam airline from an SAS hub.

The snag, if flying from London, is that there are no SkyTeam lounges in Terminal 2 which is where SAS flights depart from.

I suspect that you won’t have access to the Plaza Premium lounge in Terminal 2 either, since even SAS premium passengers do not get access to non-SAS operated lounges.

(EDIT: Comments below say that SAS ticket holders which include lounge access can use the Lufthansa lounge.)

Got SAS elite status?

Over the summer, SAS was offering a status match to members of British Airways Executive Club – see here.

SAS EuroBonus Silver members are now SkyTeam Elite, and Gold and Diamond members have become SkyTeam Elite Plus.

If you took advantage of this match and are now Elite Plus (SAS Gold or Diamond), your SAS card will now get you into SkyTeam lounges.

Unfortunately, there are restrictions on Elite Plus members of SkyTeam getting into the Virgin Atlantic Clubhouse at Heathrow Terminal 3.

SAS Gold and Diamond (SkyTeam Elite Plus) members do NOT get Virgin Atlantic Clubhouse access if flying in Economy or Premium on Virgin Atlantic. You will be sent to the Aspire lounge in Terminal 3 instead.

There is one other quirk with SAS elite status. Due to IT issues, your SAS Elite Plus status will not, for now, be recognised by Middle East Airlines, Aeromexico and Aerolineas Argentinas.

What about the transatlantic joint venture?

SAS has NOT joined the transatlantic joint venture operated by Virgin Atlantic, Delta Air Line, KLM and Air France, although this is the ultimate goal.

It requires multiple Government approvals, including from the UK, because it will impact competition across the Atlantic.

What might make the process harder is that SAS was NOT in the Star Alliance transatlantic joint venture with the Lufthansa Group carriers and United Airlines.

This means that there will, without be a doubt, be a lessening of transatlantic competition if SAS joins the SkyTeam joint venture. We will almost certainly see the end of the SAS £1,200 ‘no Saturday night stay needed’ business class fares from the UK to New York for example. Let’s see if the UK, EU and US authorities have an issue with this.

Conclusion

There are, of course, far more changes than we have discussed here but these are the key ones you need to know about if you live in the UK.

We will take another look at redemptions when we know what taxes and charges are being added by Virgin Atlantic. Historically SAS transatlantic redemptions have had very low surcharges.

I have been invited to Copenhagen in two weeks to meet the SAS CEO and learn more about the changes.

PS. Fun fact of the day. SkyTeam is now the only airline alliance to serve both the southernmost and northernmost commercial airports in the world: Ushuaia in Argentina and Svalbard in Norway.

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