Skywards: Why so less airline partners?
 

Perhaps Skywards is the only FF program having such a less number of airline partners, which considerably limits the mile earning opportunities to non UAE and non US members. Recently few partners left Skywards (SQ and BA). Why Skywards management is not keen on extending the partners and to reach out potential FFs in many different geographies?

One reason I can think of is pure arrogance. There is ample scope to fill the 'holes' especially in South-East-Asia, Europe and South America.

Is there any consideration at all by the management to improve the situation? Experts, please enlighten us. Thanks.

EK is not forging any alliances right now because it wants to grow and gain marketshare. If you are in an alliance, you have to give up certain markets or marketsegments which in turn stops you from growing. EK likes UA because it complements its coverage to the US. In Germany they have a feeder agreement with DBA to feed the domestic trafffic. SQ and BA are now competitors of EK, so oofering common FF terms would conflict with their policy. QR is going the same way.

Couldnt have said it better myself. EK doesnt need these alliances right now, and the negatives of partnerships would outweigh the positives. Right now, the current alliances help ek reach every part of the globe, but soon, when EK reaches those places itself, it will not longer need its current partners. The EK-UA partnership is extremeley useful mainly because it allows ff miles to be gained when travelling between NYC / other US cities and between Europe and the USA