Breaking: Star Alliance Founding Member Airline, SAS, Plans to Join SkyTeam

by Anthony Losanno
SAS Plane

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Scandinavian Airlines, commonly known as SAS, has been having some financial difficulties and filed for bankruptcy last year. It announced today that it’s securing an investment in the reorganized SAS from Castlelake, L.P., Air France-KLM, and Lind Invest along with the Danish state. As a result of one of those investors, SAS is planning to move from Star Alliance (where it was a founding member) to rival alliance, SkyTeam.

SAS Plane

SkyTeam is the world’s second largest airline alliance. It includes airlines like Delta, Air France-KLM, Korean Air, and Aeromexico (there are 19 airlines in total). As this move will take some time and need approval, SAS is reassuring its passengers that nothing is changing for them. In an email sent today, it shares:

  • Passengers can continue to book flights with us as usual.
  • Until the transaction is completed, SAS will remain part of the Star Alliance and all benefits will remain intact.
  • As a EuroBonus member, passengers can continue to accrue and redeem points on SAS and on non-air partners.
  • Member status and benefits as a EuroBonus member when they fly with SAS will not be impacted.

Anthony’s Take: It’s interesting to see SAS make the jump to SkyTeam. But, given one of its new investors (Air France-KLM), this was to be expected. Since I have been flying more Delta, I’m excited to have another airline in this alliance in the near future. Although, this will take some time and need to clear some regulatory hurdles first.

(Featured Image Credit: Miguel Angel Sanz.)

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Advertiser & Editorial Disclosure: The Bulkhead Seat earns an affiliate commission for anyone approved through the links above This compensation may impact how and where links appear on this site. We work to provide the best publicly available offers to our readers. We frequently update them, but this site does not include all available offers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed, or approved by any of these entities.

1 comment

lars October 3, 2023 - 8:48 pm

Things must be very tough for SAS to do this lol.

Reply

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