The Hindu Business Line : Air France-KLM merger

THE merger of the French airlines, Air France, and the Dutch airline, KLM, is to offer a host of benefits to air travellers around the globe, including India, with a wider choice of routes, more seats and an attractive frequent flyer programme.

The combined network, organised around the hubs of Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport and Amsterdam-Schiphol, will enable the new combine to offer passengers 225 destinations around the globe instead of 200 by Air France and 131 by KLM independently.

The combined network comprises 119 short- and medium-haul destinations and 106 long-haul destinations, 47 of which are served by Air France, 23 by KLM and 36 by both. The merger of the two airlines, announced in May, created the world's largest airline group in revenue terms. In 2002-03, the two airlines together carried 66.3 million passengers and had 538 aircraft in operations (Air France's 360 aircraft carried 42.9 million passengers.)

Incidentally, both the airlines have a considerable presence in India with Air France alone operating a daily flight from both Delhi and Mumbai. KLM operates a daily fight from Delhi, apart from offering regular connections from Mumbai.

The merger means that for destinations served by both airlines, passengers can combine two fares, giving them the choice of an outbound flight with KLM through Amsterdam and a return flight with Air France via Paris or vice-versa.

In a statement, the Group has said that combined fares are now available on all KLM and Air France European markets and would be introduced gradually in the other markets. Besides, the merger also provides more choices to the passengers.

At regular intervals through the day, the two airlines will schedule 15 code-share flights each way between Paris and Amsterdam, thereby offering the customer almost 4,500 seats a day in each direction. In addition, this service will also increase the number of available connections worldwide through either CDG in Paris or Schiphol in Amsterdam.

Air France and KLM will also be extending their services between Amsterdam and French regional destinations and between Paris and Dutch regional destinations, with the launch of three routes, including Amsterdam-Bordeaux on which Air France is to operate three flights a day.

Besides, during the course of next year, the two airlines will merge their frequent flyer programmes to launch a combined frequent flyer programme.

According to the Group, this is the first time two national airlines will merge their frequent flyer programmes and create single database grouping of all their members, making a total of 9.3 million frequent flyers. By 2005, the integrated Air France-KLM frequent flyer programme expects to offer customers one programme and one card to access an extensive network and a wide range of commercial and airline partners which will help them earn miles and rewards.

However, from this month, the frequent flyers from both programmes of the two airlines will be able to accrue miles and obtain reward tickets on the entire network of Air France and KLM. Incidentally, in India itself Air France alone has a frequent flyer base of about 42,000 members. Besides, to celebrate their merger, the two airlines will launch a special offer which will enable passengers to travel on one or both airlines. But the good times for the passenger, it would seem, are not going to end with just that. Come September, KLM and the two US airlines — Northwest and Continental — will join the SkyTeam global airline alliance, making it the world's second largest alliance.

This, in turn, will help Air France and KLM offer passengers all the benefits of the SkyTeam. At present, the SkyTeam includes six global airlines, including Air France, the Italian airline, Alitalia, Czech Airlines, the US airline Delta, Korean Air and Aero Mexico. The global alliance offers 7,865 daily flights to 500 destinations.

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