TAROM to become a SKYTEAM associate
 

More info here: http://http://www.skyteam.com/EN/abo...r/pr070508.jsp

Are they the addition to Skyteam referred to in another post?

Just realised that Jouy31 had beaten me to it and already posted the news in the AF forum. Damm...:mad: ;)

No timeline. :td:

Figure it'll take a while since they have their own FF program, unlike all the other Associate members who use the FF program of their sponsor...

Count on two years at least.... when do you think we will see the first post asking whether or not they will earn SkyMiles or FB credit for their upcoming TAROM flight?

They will definitely be moving to FB. UX also had their own (extremely lousy I may add!) FFP before joining as an associate and at the same time converting to FB.
I think the original plan had been for AZ to sponsor RO, but with the current situation this would obviously not be a solid long-term bet, and I can't see OK being interested in committing any resources to such a project after Malev turned against them and defected to OW, so AF decided to take it into their own hands.
I expect Smart Miles Super members (all five of them) will be thrilled to welcome FB and the resultant loss of their space-available upgrades!

What about MEA!?

This will add a host of new cities. Any guess as to whether an intra Romanina award will come around ?

I wouldn't bet on an intra-Romania reward, but I've been wrong before. As for adding a host of new cities, it adds ~10 new cities in Romania but nothing else that I can see. All of their other destinations appear to be served by at least one other SkyTeam carrier, and often more than one. More options is always good, but this doesn't really open up a huge new chunk of the world to the alliance.

Just what SkyTeam needed...another European Carrier. Does Belarus have a national carrier? The obscure mid-northeastern corner of the continent needs coverage.

I view this as a positive thing. After all its getting harder and harder to score an award tkt. Any help in being able to go from ABC to XYZ is ^

While I agree that any new option is good (I said that above, too), this addition has very limited value except for destinations in Romania. I don't know that LON-DXB via BUH is going to be all that appealing considering the number of non-stops on the route and the number of existing one-stop SkyTeam options. Then again, I did briefly have OK seats booked for IST-LHR (via PRG, of course) for my trip later this summer. I only changed back to AF via CDG because I wanted to actually fly to BRS or SOU, both of which AF is able to do for me. So it is good, but not great. And certainly not on par with adding another S. American or SE Asian carrier, where the coverage - especially within the region - is much more limited.

LOL! As a matter of fact, they do, Belavia.

However, that obscure corner of the continent will be covered by another soon-to-be-member, LAL Lithuanian Airlines.

I take it you haven't checked their business class prices on said route!! Could well be cheaper than EK economy!!

I welcome say a XX-CDG-BUC-TLV as an option over paying what is amounting very fast to a min of 2k for a cheap Coach tkt (that earns miles). Any new way to use my ST miles be it out of DL or CO is always welcome news in my book, that will include if Im flying and staying in Europe but no other options are available for using my Miles

Would I purchase such a tkt only if it was alot less then anything else that was available. Im looking more for ways to burn up my Miles before they burn up by themselves