EUROPEAN airlines are continuing to expand their global alliances to cut costs, increase sales and fight off competition.
Alitalia is the latest carrier to join the KLM/Northwest grouping, which also includes Continental Airlines, Malaysia Airlines and Norwegian carrier Braathens.
KLM said Alitalia’s entry into the alliance brought it several benefits, including allowing KLM to sell Italian domestic flights for the first time.
“This will vastly increase our European offering to our customers,” explained KLM UK director of sales Peter Cornwall.
Also, KLM, Northwest and Alitalia have applied to the US Department of Transportation for immunity from the US antitrust laws – which allows the airlines to skirt around existing US monopoly laws – giving them the chance to co-ordinate their transatlantic services.
The US Department of Trade granted antitrust immunity to Northwest and KLM when they created their alliance but they have to apply again to add Alitalia to the deal.
Meanwhile, Aer Lingus has announced it will join the Oneworld alliance formed by British Airways and American Airlines at the end of this year, and All Nippon Airways and Singapore Airlines are planning to join the eight-carrier Star Alliance by the autumn.
The nine members of the Qualiflyer group of airlines have strengthened their alliance with the merger of their European sales operations.
They have just opened a single call centre, based in Hammersmith, west London, to replace the individual call centres previously operated by Swissair, Sabena, Austrian Airlines, Lauda Air, Crossair, Tyrolean Airlines, AOM, Air Littoral and TAP Air Portugal.
The only member of the Qualiflyer Group that will continue to run a separate sales operation is TurkishAirlines.
The new Hammersmith centre will be fully operational by July, when it will be open from 7am to 10pm seven days a week and be staffed by a 150-strong sales team.
Swissair claimed the centre will offer both the trade and members of the public a better service as it will be open longer, has state-of-the-art technology and will be operated by multilingual staff.