Delta Air Lines announced on Monday an expansion of their joint venture with Air France-KLM and Virgin Atlantic which will offer customers greater travel and loyalty options when traveling between Europe, the U.K. and North America.
Today, Delta Air Lines announced an expanded joint venture with Air France-KLM and Virgin Atlantic creating the world’s leading partnership for customers traveling between Europe, the U.K. and North America. The new joint venture will expand travel and loyalty program options for customers of each partner airline. Travelers can now book seamless travel on the apps and websites of the respective airlines or through travel agents and will receive premium cabin products, complimentary food and beverage service and premium seatback inflight entertainment on all transatlantic flights. In Monday’s announcement, Virgin Atlantic’s CEO, Shai Weiss said,
“Customers are at the heart of this expanded joint venture with our partners Delta, Air France and KLM, where 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.”
Starting February 13th, guests of all four airlines will be able to earn and use miles and enjoy elite benefits when traveling on any of the partner airlines’ flights, whether transatlantic, intra-Europe or on U.S. domestic flights. Additionally, eligible elite loyalty program members will enjoy priority boarding, as well as access to more than 100 airport lounges worldwide, when traveling internationally. With the new partnership, member airline guests will now have access to 110 nonstop transatlantic routes, with up to 341 peak daily transatlantic nonstop flights on the top ten routes. Customers will also have seamless connections to 238 North American cities, 98 cities in continental Europe and 16 U.K. destinations. Also commenting on today’s announcement, Delta Air Lines CEO, Ed Bastian said,
“Our expanded partnership is a major step forward for all of our airlines as we deliver greater reliability, top travel benefits and leading service that our customers deserve. Today’s 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.”
Along with the obvious customer benefits, the expanded network is also fully available to cargo customers, providing nonstop ore one-stop service to every corner of Europe, the U.K. and North America, via hubs in Amsterdam, Atlanta, Boston, Detroit, London-Heathrow, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New York-JFK, Paris, Seattle and Salt Lake City. Regarding the new partnership, Air France-KLM Group CEO, Benjamin Smith added,
“Ten years after starting our joint venture with Delta, this new agreement is a major milestone that will even 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.”
The new joint venture (JV) encompasses around 23 percent of transatlantic passenger and cargo capacity. Combined, Air France-KLM, Delta and Virgin Atlantic employ more than 180,000 team members and generate annual revenue of around $13B.
Source: Delta Air Lines