Alex McWhirter examines topical issues. This month: will Skyteam be the “third” alliance for much longer?

If you are based in London then Skyteam lags behind rival airline alliances Oneworld and Star by some margin. But cast your eyes across the Channel to France and Holland and you will find a different scenario, one where Skyteam is by far and away the leader because two of its main members, Air France and KLM, dominate the market.

Luckily for Skyteam, there is more to the UK than London. Because leading Oneworld member British Airways is London-centric, Skyteam scores highly in the regions. Travellers based in Aberdeen in the north, Southampton in the south, Cardiff, Bristol and Liverpool in the west, Leeds in the centre, and Newcastle, Humberside and Norwich in the east depend on Air France and KLM for their international links.

If Skyteam has a UK drawback, it is the lack of big-name Asian carriers (these have already joined Oneworld or Star Alliance), plus its weakness Down Under. Yes, member Korean Air can take you from Heathrow to Asia and on to Australia via Seoul, but I fancy most UK travellers would prefer the likes of JAL or ANA via Tokyo (Oneworld and Star, respectively), Cathay Pacific via Hong Kong (Oneworld), Thai Airways via Bangkok (Star) or SIA via Singapore (Star).

Of course, Air France and KLM can also take you to Asia but neither serves Australia and Londoners face a plane change in Paris or Amsterdam. Skyteam’s China Southern and Delta Air Lines serve Australia but this involves routing via Guangzhou and the US, respectively. And in any case, China Southern does not serve the UK.

Mauro Oretti, Skyteam’s vice-president of sales and marketing, accepted these points when I interviewed him at the alliance’s Amsterdam HQ. “But with new members joining in the near future we will provide more offers out of Heathrow,” he said.

There is no doubt Skyteam is expanding. Tarom of Romania joined in 2010, as did Vietnam Airlines. Future members include Taiwan’s China Airlines, and the mainland’s China Eastern, which has merged with Shanghai Airlines. Aerolineas Argentinas is also on the list, with other possibles being Indonesia’s Garuda and Lebanon’s Middle East Airlines.

When existing and future members are considered, Skyteam is number one in China, and this is something of a feat. I raised some topical reader issues with Oretti – here are his responses.

Variations in onboard service and seating

“We believe passengers cherish the diversity created by the cultural differences of each carrier. No alliance has a policy that specifies the seating or the number of classes on a particular flight or route. That decision is left to the member airline.”

Ground service

“That is where we demand compliance from our members. They must offer Elite benefits for loyalty cardholders with check-in and ticketing benefits. We specify that all members must be able to access the passenger’s PNR [passenger name record or booking history]. Most of our work focuses on moving our passengers as easily as possible from A to B. The on-ground experience is where we think alliances can achieve consistency.”

When I raised reader concerns about this, Oretti said: “I agree that not all the alliances are there yet with a seamless product. It’s a target [for us], not a fait accompli.” He rightly pointed out that history showed Skyteam excelled in the area of joint ventures. These assist passengers by offering routes that might not be feasible for the individual airline to operate – the best example being out of Amsterdam with KLM and Delta. The co-operation involves codesharing on connections both at Amsterdam and the US gateways.

It also extends to Delta operating certain routes on behalf of KLM – think Amsterdam-Detroit or Amsterdam-Mumbai. KLM’s venture, originally with Northwest before this carrier was acquired by Delta, started in 1997. “If you can work with that level of integration for so long then it proves our members can deliver on joint ventures,” Oretti said.

Costlier round-the-world tickets

“Some 70 per cent of our passengers use round-the-world [RTW] tickets for business purposes,” Oretti said. “As more carriers join Skyteam and fill the gaps in our network, we believe we can charge more. But a new booking system to be introduced by June 2011 will probably offer a lower fare for those travellers booking simple RTW trips.”

Gulf carriers to join?

“I don’t think they are interested. Our strategy is to provide a complementary network solution to all our members, so we try not to have members whose networks overlap. Because the Gulf carriers have no home market they [end up] connecting passengers from one region to another. With its [big order] for A380s, Emirates is on a mission to connect the globe. But how can that happen without it being detrimental to the rest of us?” (See New world order)