AF/KLM and implications for NW/WP
 

If Air France in effect acquires KLM, as the financial press is predicting, what impact will this have on WP? I fly alot Paris/Boston and it would be great to be able to use the direct AF connection and not have to route through Ams. as long of course as I could use NW miles to upgrade on AF, get miles on the flight etc. Would the whole Star Alliance in effect then be available? The discussions I have seen deal with the financial aspects of the deal but not the (more important to me) FF aspects. Any informed guesses, info would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance

Joe747

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KLM becomes a member of SkyTeam, at which time NW will to due to an existing agreement with SkyTeam.

The key is the terms of the deal for the merger of AF & KLM. We need to wait and see how that plays out and what it means for the existing NW/KLM partnership.

I am guessing (only my opinion) that all of the individual FF programs (incl. Worldperks) will remain in the new skyteam alliance.

The only question is whether upgrading will be harder due to a larger pool of members (all FFers belong to the alliance).


RC

What will happen to Malaysian, Jet Airways, Kenyan and GlobalPass partners? Will KLM dump them?

I don't think we should speculate just yet, there are obviously many changes by all of the partner airlines (conflicting flights, city pairs dues to the expansion of the alliance) probably to be anounced early 2004.

Sit back and stay tuned!

RC



[This message has been edited by Radiocycle (edited 09-27-2003).]

An outright merger of AF/KL is somewhat unlikely, IMO. Having Air France as the national airline of the Netherlands is something I don't think we'll see...or they will change the name if the merger is complete.

My understanding of the transaction is not that the carriers would be merged but the shares of AF and KLM would be contributed to a holding company in which the Dutch government had a "golden share" to keep control in principle. Thus the two carriers would be commonly owned and controlled but still exist separatly.

Joe747 is right about how he described the deal. When it closes, KLM shareholders will own around 20% of a new holding company that will own both airlines. The airlines will operate under their own names, but will obviously cooperate very tightly.

As for alliance partners, I am not certain that there will be much change there (i.e. NW dumping partners when it joins SkyTeam). In the other major alliances, each airline has it's own set of partners that are available for the members of that particular airline's ff program, but would be unavailable to the other alliance ff members.

At any rate, NW entry into SkyTeam is a long way off because of the regulatory hurdles that must be jumped in order to facilitate a cross border merger as is being discussed in Europe. I don't know for sure, but it's possible the AF/KL merger would require regulatory approval here in the US also due to existing agreements between NW and KL. Certainly any plans for NW to join SkyTeam, even when they are invited, would require FTC approval.