Skyteam has announced plans to open a branded lounge at Vancouver International airport later this year.

The facility will be the alliance’s first branded lounge in North America, and seventh worldwide, joining spaces at Heathrow, Beijing, Dubai, Hong Kong, Istanbul and Sydney.

The lounge at Vancouver will offer “a luxurious environment for First, Business and Elite Plus customers flying on any of the alliance’s nine member airlines currently serving the airport” – carriers which include Aeromexico, China Airlines, China Eastern, China Southern, Delta, KLM, Korean Air and Xiamen Air.

Skyteam CEO and managing director Perry Cantarutti said that “Increasing the number of shared facilities worldwide realizes significant synergies for our airlines while offering a greatly enhanced airport experience for our top customers”, adding that with the new opening the alliance “will offer more branded airport lounges around the world than any other airline alliance”.

The group said it was also focusing on projects designed to “enhance the customer experience”, including a team of 10,000 “SkyPriority auditors” – high value travellers tasked with “assessing their airport experience at every SkyPriority touchpoint”.

A recently introduced Skyteam retrocrediting tool for missing miles will be available across all members by the end of the year, and the group said it is now the first alliance to offer a dedicated product for Marine and Offshore travel.

skyteam.com