Air France, KLM, Delta and Virgin Atlantic have announced a global partnership to benefit travellers around the world. The airlines revealed the partnership this week.
It will provide customers with more convenient flight schedules and a shared goal of ensuring a smooth and consistent travel experience, whichever airline people fly.
The partnership also provides the flexibility to book flights on any of the four carriers through their respective mobile apps, websites, or via travel agents. Customers will enjoy award-winning service, top-tier premium cabin products and complimentary food, drink and seat-back in-flight entertainment in all cabins on all trans-Atlantic flights.
Enhanced customer benefits mean that loyalty programme members will be able to earn and use miles or enjoy elite benefits for flights on any of the four airlines’ worldwide operations, including a trans-Atlantic trip, intra-Europe hops, or domestic US journey.
Other highlights include up to 341 peak daily trans-Atlantic services, covering the top 10 routes on a nonstop basis, onward connections to 238 cities in North America, 98 in continental Europe and 16 in the UK and a choice of 110 nonstop trans-Atlantic routes.
A press statement revealed: “The enhanced network is also fully available to cargo customers and is built around the carriers’ hubs in Amsterdam, Atlanta, Boston, Detroit, London Heathrow, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New York-JFK, Paris, Seattle and Salt Lake City. It creates convenient nonstop or one-stop connections to every corner of North America, Europe and the UK.”
Virgin Atlantic CEO Shai Weiss said customers were at the heart of this expanded joint venture with partners Delta, Air France and KLM.
“Seamless connections, a greater range of flights, unrivalled customer service and increased frequent flyer benefits will reinforce its position as the choice passengers most love to fly. One of the pillars of our strategy is successfully collaborating with our partners. Combining our strengths, our network, and our people allows us to achieve more together,” said Weiss.
Delta CEO Ed Bastian said the expanded partnership is a major step forward for the airlines “The launch brings our historic, longstanding collaboration to a new level as we continue to build the partnership of choice across Europe and North America that sets us apart from the rest of the industry.”
Air France-KLM Group CEO Benjamin Smith said the new agreement is a major milestone that will further reinforce our presence on the Atlantic by allowing our passengers the choice between four major airlines combining their network for the benefit of our customers.
“For Air France–KLM, it also means greater access to the U.K. market and especially London Heathrow, the leading global travel market.”