A View from the Midwest
 

A review of the Skyteam alliance......


SkyTeam at a glance

The most notable aspect of Northwest's alliance with SkyTeam is it broadens WorldPerks fliers' ability to earn and burn. Also, you're likely to see nonstop service between Minneapolis-St.Paul and Paris to connect into Air France's hub; Mexico City (to Aeromexico's hub) is a real possibility as well. I wouldn't exclude Rome and Seoul, either, but they're longer shots.

That said, in my opinion, SkyTeam is more of a nothing burger than a meaningful change.

Let's start with access. The SkyTeam partners new to WorldPerks -- Air France, Alitalia, Aeromexico, Korean Air and CSA (Czech) -- don't significantly broaden WorldPerks' reach. They open up minor destinations in north Asia, France, Italy, Mexico and the Czech Republic, but Northwest, KLM, Continental and Delta already have Europe, Asia and Latin America broadly covered. SkyTeam remains the only global alliance without convenient service from North America to Australia or New Zealand.

Then there's the quality issue. The two other major alliances, oneworld and Star Alliance, are home to the remaining premier carriers (such as Singapore Air, Qantas, British Airways, Cathay Pacific) that offer special luxuries and wonderful service no longer provided by U.S. airlines. By contrast, one of the SkyTeam partners, Korean Air, is notorious for a high volume of crashes and incidents in the past 20 years, which caused the Korean government to temporarily ban it from adding new routes in 1999. Two other partners, Alitalia and Delta, are publicly threatening to declare bankruptcy, and SkyTeam's next likely entrant is, seriously, Russia's Aeroflot.

Of the three major alliances, SkyTeam is the one that offers the fewest added benefits to Minnesota travelers.

Adam Platt is the travel editor at Mpls.St.Paul magazine.

anyone have an update on this, say from 2006?

an update
 

Well, it's 2006, Aeroflot is in (much to the envy of *A) and is doing definitely better than NW, Korean Air still hasn't had a crash and SkyTeam still doesn't have any meaningful access from the US to Australia even though it was voted world's best airline alliance in 2005 by Global Traveler Magazine.

In other news: the only alliance that's had a member airline in liquidation is *A with Varig.

Hmmm, and I don't think the number of people who believe that AirFrance doesn't open up any meaningful destinations or that QF is a premier carrier - besides travel editors in the US Midwest - has grown much since this was published.

FYI, *A also unfortunately lost Ansett Australia to liquidation

Yes, and don't forget Canadian Airlines founder member of OneWorld!