Konrad From United States of America, joined Mar 2002, 494 posts, RR: 0 Posted (3 years 4 months 3 days 10 hours ago) and read 5567 times:
A Polish financial daily reported that AF/KLM group entered bid to raise capital of LOT Polish Airlines and take control of the company. No other airlines showed interest.
LOT is now strongly integrated with LH and Star Alliance, its frequent traveller scheme being LH Miles&More.
Icna05e From France, joined Feb 2006, 289 posts, RR: 0 Reply 2, posted (3 years 4 months 3 days 6 hours ago) and read 5112 times:
Hm. CSA won't be too happy about it, they are Skyteam's partner in Eastern Europe (along with a smaller and further out Tarom); It could work if well-integrated, after all Poland is big enough of a market itself. But LH won't allow it!!!
Kiwiandrew From New Zealand, joined Jun 2005, 8435 posts, RR: 15 Reply 3, posted (3 years 4 months 3 days 6 hours ago) and read 5075 times:
I am curious how this would work if AF/KL won . Currently LO doesnt have a frequent flyer programme of its own - it uses LH Miles and More . What would happen to current LO frequent flyers mileage balances ? I assume that they would stay in M&M and that members would have to start over again in Flying Blue ( although presumably with status matches pretty much guaranteed ) . Nevertheless LH would retain a vast amount of info regarding LO top frequent fliers which could be a huge help to trying to keep those pax with LH .
Moderation in all things ... including moderation ;-)
Konrad From United States of America, joined Mar 2002, 494 posts, RR: 0 Reply 5, posted (3 years 4 months 3 days 6 hours ago) and read 4997 times:
Quoting Icna05e (Reply 2): Hm. CSA won't be too happy about it, they are Skyteam's partner in Eastern Europe (along with a smaller and further out Tarom); It could work if well-integrated, after all Poland is big enough of a market itself. But LH won't allow it!!!
Air France / KLM tried to purchase a controlling stake in CSA last year but failed. Their offer was too low? I believe that LOT being in trouble can be purchased at a smaller expense. The restructuring might be costly, though.
Quoting Kiwiandrew (Reply 3): I am curious how this would work if AF/KL won . Currently LO doesnt have a frequent flyer programme of its own - it uses LH Miles and More . What would happen to current LO frequent flyers mileage balances ? I assume that they would stay in M&M and that members would have to start over again in Flying Blue ( although presumably with status matches pretty much guaranteed ) . Nevertheless LH would retain a vast amount of info regarding LO top frequent fliers which could be a huge help to trying to keep those pax with LH .
Of course LH has data of all LOT Frequent Travellers, however accounts of those registered in Poland are managed from Warsaw. They might offer those members transition to AF/KLM FF scheme on favorable terms, matching their miles and status.
If I am not wrong, a similar thing happened after the demise of Qualiflyer FF scheme, Polish members were offered transition to LH M&M or they could stay with their Qualiflyer cards which were good for nothing else but Swiss.
It is far too early to be sure of anything, but bringing AF/KLM into Poland would give the market a very much needed competition. Right now, apart from some diversity at WAW, it is a true Star Alliance fortress.
spokesman Maciej Wewior told Dow Jones Newswires "Three entities are interested, one of them is a financial investor and there's an investor from the aviation sector as well."
and as stated above Air France-KLM had denied any association. Too bad because Skyteam seems the way to go these days. I wonder who it is? SU? EK? The government is most likely to pick a financial investor, as any foreign aviation investor would be deemed too radical.
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