What alliance is Delta under?

  • Jul 18, 2024
What alliance is Delta under?

Leading worldwide airline alliance Delta Air Lines is honored to be one of SkyTeam's founding members.

Based on passenger traffic and flight operations, Delta Airlines, an American airline among the biggest in the world, With its headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, this airline has a broad domestic and international coverage spanning over 300 locations in over 50 countries.

Regarding international airline alliances, Delta Airlines is a founding member of the SkyTeam alliance; the main ones are Oneworld, Star Alliance, and SkyTeam.

Information on SkyTeam Alliance

SkyTeam was formed on 22 June 2000 with the participation of major airlines such as Delta Air Lines, Aeroméxico, Air France, and Korean Air. The saved vision was to provide customers from the partner airlines with a more integrated experience when traveling internationally. SkyTeam was serving over 341 million passengers at the time of its creation and offering 14,500+ daily flights covering 451 destinations.

The authors who originally founded the concept were convinced that no single airline company can offer the best service and connections for traveling to all corners of the Earth. They could try to come together in an alliance whereby they would route their clients through each other and thereby provide improved connectivity together with a more homogenous service offering to the international clients.

In the past two decades, the SkyTeam alliance has grown substantially to enhance its presence throughout the world. As of 2022, it has close to 19 member airlines operating in cooperation. Some of the prime members of this group include China Airlines, Vietnam Airlines, KLM, Saudi Arabian Airlines, Air Europa, and among others. Combined, the alliance operates in more than 170 countries and offers over 14,500 flights per day.

Advantages of Being a Member Of SkyTeam Alliance

By being part of the SkyTeam alliance, Delta Air Lines and other members aim to provide the following benefits to customers: By being part of the SkyTeam alliance, Delta Air Lines and other members aim to provide the following benefits to customers:

  • Seamless Global Connectivity: SkyTeam also ensures that flight connection schedules of member airlines are well-coordinated thus benefiting the customers when transferring at connection hubs while traveling internationally.

  • Greater Destination Options: Other benefits include members working collectively to give their customers access to over 1,000 destinations worldwide that a member airline cannot offer independently.

  • Consistent Travel Experience: The alliance members harmonize expectations for privileged travelers, for instance, to access lounge facilities or priority services, to offer uniformity in the experience irrespective of the carrier used to form a single trip.

  • Easier Miles/Points Earnings & Redemptions: Members of frequent flyer programs are allowed to accrue and redeem miles or points for travel on any SkyTeam member airline. This is well beneficial to Delta in the sense that SkyMiles members can accrue more miles while flying in KLM and vice versa, they can redeem SkyMiles for an award ticket in Air France.

    Such a relationship between the two companies benefits business travelers by making their regular flights more productive and enjoyable.

  • Mutual Support During Disruptions: In relationship to the external environment partners in the airline industry collaborate to manage customers' interruptions by providing recovery solutions. This involves the pooling of members’ resources during times of crisis thereby leveraging on overall size of members.

    Benefits and involvement of Delta in the sky team alliance

    SkyTeam alliance was formed 20 years ago and Delta initiated and actively participated in the development of the alliance strategies and objectives.

    Delta’s fortress hubs in Atlanta, Detroit, Minneapolis/New York JFK, and its domination of transcontinental US routes provide the alliance with significant domestic feed. This is in addition to other strategic global linkages with partners such as the Air France KLM of Europe and the Korean Air of Asia.

    Beyond just network reach, some notable contributions by Delta Air Lines to the SkyTeam alliance include:

  • SkyTeam benefited from his professional assistance in helping the alliance get antitrust immunity for transatlantic joint ventures for connecting Europe and North America in 2010. This paved the way for more efficiency between Delta and its partners in terms of pricing, sales, and marketing through Trans-Atlantic airline partners in Air France, KLM, and Alitalia.

  • Introducing the first expedited connection service, SkyPriority, in 2009 of SkyTeam alliance from Atlanta and making it operational in over 800 airports across the globe. That means this service is aimed at fast check-in, security, and baggage delivery for passengers who have a connecting flight.

  • On the strategic level, they aimed at improving customer satisfaction and upgrading the technologies related to the members of the alliance, such as contactless traveling, mobile applications, and AI customer support during the pandemic.

  • Responsible for promoting sustainability in the alliance through inaugurating the SkyTeam Sustainable Flight Challenge in 2021 is striving to minimize CO2 emissions through operational improvements.

    Future Prospects of Delta in SkyTeam Alliance

    Thus, while the last two decades have witnessed SkyTeam become a much stronger alliance with Delta, one can only imagine even greater potential for improvements in customer experience in the future.

    Resumption of global traveling activities due to the relaxation of COVID-19 restrictions, both SkyTeam alliance and Delta Air Lines have expressed their intentions to continue enhancing their digital servicing solutions as well as embracing sustainability.

    Both Delta and SkyTeam alliance are also eager to continue to integrate the overall customer experience with the airline across the entire value chain over the coming years this may include check-in, baggage transfers, rebooking abilities, and pre- or post-flight services.

    Even though self-reliant capabilities will be instrumental in building up the Delta Air Line brand, the company must make an active contribution to the SkyTeam alliance that will help Delta chart its long-term growth into global and new segments. When used, Delta will be able to harness its allies’ network strength to gain market share internationally especially due to shifts in consumers’ perception and competition.

    After the realignments of the rival alliances such as Oneworld which had grown over this decade with new high-profile members from Asia and the Middle East, the SkyTeam alliance and Delta Air Lines will both be interested in enhancing their possessions all over the globe in the next decade.

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