skewedstyle

I booked an extremely convoluted award ticket for August, from New York to Lilongwe Malawi using various Skyteam partners. The final leg is operated by Kenya Airways. The main reason I went through Kenya is because flights to Johannesburg for the time I want were unavailable, but also because it was all included under Skymiles going through Kenya, rather than having to buy an additional ticket from Joburg to Lilongwe.

A few days later, a friend of mine booked her ticket, and after a long time searching different dates, managed to get a ticket to Joburg. The rep then told her that Kenya Airlines was not going to be part of Skyteam any longer, and that I would probably end up being re-routed (or even just left in Kenya, requiring $200 more to get to Lilongwe than it would cost from Johannesburg!). I cannot find any proof of that online. I'm on very limited time and really don't this to be true! Has anyone heard anything?

alanw

I think someone is pulling your friend's leg. As they are partially owned by KLM, I don't see this happening.

sbm12

A reservations agent is unlikely to have advance information on such a move, which also casts suspicion on the liklihood of it happening. In addition to the partial ownership, KQ also shares a FF program (FlyingBlue) with KL. I cannot imagine that the partnership is going away any time soon.

skewedstyle

That was what I thought too...from the Skyteam website it seemed that KQ was pretty firmly entrenched due to relationship w/ KLM, AND it just joined Skteam last year so why leave now? But it's an odd "joke" for the agent to make. We figured that she was just covering for the fact that she hadn't heard of Lilongwe and hadn't been able to find the tickets, but I thought I'd ask...