Loyalty Programs in the airlines sector (3/4)

Posted on February 1, 2009 by Matthieu Desiderio

The impact of airlines alliances on Loyalty Programs

It is interesting to note that the very first airline alliance was built around a FFP. The defunct Swissair owned the “Qualiflyer” FFP and took majority stakes in various airlines which were linked with Qualiflyer. Swissair collapsed in 2002 with (or partly because of?) Qualiflyer.

Currently, in case of airlines IPO or merger, the first common project is the FFP Merger (Air France/KLM in 2005, Delta/Northwest Airlines in 2009). FFP is the most visible joint product of the new company on the customers’ side.
The three existing Global Alliances (Star Alliance, SkyTeam and One World) aim to provide many benefits to their clients, including reciprocal mileage accrual and award tickets. Thanks to huge ICT investments, they introduced standard procedures for data exchange, miles and award settlement, recognition of higher tiers, web booking tools, etc.

Surprisingly, some major airlines are still aside Global Alliances, especially in the Gulf. These airlines have bilateral FFP agreements with other carriers from different alliances.

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