Greece’s SkyTeam Leaders Inform Travel Trade
SkyTeam, the global airline alliance founded by Aeromexico, Air France, Delta Air Lines and Korean Air, as well as its newest member, CSA Czech Airlines, held a major bash at the Astir Palace last month to inform the Greek travel trade on the many customer benefits available through the alliance.
Local heads of the member airlines told guests that theirs is the first global airline alliance created around the customer. They explained that through one of the world’s most extensive hub networks, SkyTeam offers its 176.7 million annual passengers a worldwide system of 7,091 daily flights. These flights cover all the major destinations, particularly in the Northern Hemisphere, where nearly 80 percent of the world’s traffic flies.
In their joint statement, the airlines’ representatives here said that in addition to SkyTeam’s extensive current flight offerings, the alliance is well positioned for future growth in flights and facilities. Paris’ Charles de Gaulle Airport, Air France’s hub, and Seoul’s new Inchon Airport, the hub for Korean Air, are two of the few major hub airports in the world with room to expand.
Aeromexico’s Benito Juarez International Airport hub in Mexico City provides SkyTeam passengers with access to Latin America’s leading airport, with more than 6,000 passengers passing through its gates per hour.
Air France’s operations at Charles de Gaulle Airport offer access to Europe’s largest hub with more than 14,000 connections available in less than two hours each week – more than Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Heathrow, Brussels or Zurich.
Delta’s hub at Atlanta Hartsfield International Airport offers passengers more connections than any other airport in the world, with 1,316 daily flights to 126 destinations.
Korean Air, one of Asia’s largest carriers, services 78 destinations in 29 countries including Japan, China, Korea and Southeast Asia, and through its Seoul hub offers customers fast and convenient connections to major cities around the world.
And because the alliance has some 659 airport and city ticket offices, customers, wherever they are in the world, will never be more than a few steps away from qualified SkyTeam travel assistance.
They added that SkyTeam’s integrated information technology network enables passengers to contact SkyTeam members’ call centers, city ticket offices or airport ticket offices to ascertain flight schedules, service details (such as aircraft type and meal information), booking and departure confirmations, seat assignments and published fares.
Passengers also will be able to find all of this flight information by logging onto www.skyteam.com. In addition, they said, passengers connecting from one partner airline to another will be able to save time by checking in only once. And frequent flyers can earn miles in their current accounts when flying any of the partner airlines.