Virgin finally joins SkyTeam – what’s going on?
On Thursday 2nd March, Virgin Atlantic Airways joined the SkyTeam Alliance. Here’s what that means for you.
Sky Priority for Flying Club members
SkyTeam implement alliance-wide benefits for member airlines which split between Elite and Elite Plus travellers. Virgin Flying Club Silver members map across to Elite while Gold travellers will also become Elite Plus.
For both this means that you will benefit from:
- Use of Premium check-in (e.g. Business Class check-in desks)
- Priority security queues where available
- Priority boarding
- Extra baggage which varies from member to member
In addition to their existing partnerships with SkyTeam’s Delta and Air France KLM, these can be used across another fifteen airlines such as ITA, Korean Air and China Airlines. These are weak benefits when compared to Virgin’s primary competitor, British Airways and the equivalent Silver level in oneworld which includes lounge access.
We’re better, connected?
Alliances tout benefits such as being able to connect onwards to other member airlines more easily, but there are some limitations to this. At Virgin’s only hub, Heathrow, SkyTeam members are split across Terminal 3 and Terminal 4 with Air France KLM moving back to the latter by the end of March 2023. Split terminal operations for the alliance will make it less convenient for passengers to connecting within the alliance to Virgin Atlantic, as it will involve a convoluted transfer bus.
This isn’t unique to SkyTeam, since oneworld is split across Terminal 3 and BA’s home at Terminal 5, but pales in comparison to Star Alliance whose member airlines are all based at Terminal 2.
Long term, if intra-alliance connectivity becomes a priority, it would make sense for:
- SkyTeam to re-almagamate around Terminal 4
- Oneworld in Terminal 3 and 5
- Star Alliance in Terminal 2
This feels unlikely unless Virgin Atlantic was determined to start from a blank canvas with their facilities…which seems a costly and unlikely move.
Lounge access for Gold travellers
Those on the Gold tier of Flying Club will now benefit from access to SkyTeam Alliance lounges across the globe when flying on member airlines. Like other alliances, the quality of lounge spaces varies greatly from location to location – with some excellent lounges, such as the SkyTeam lounges in hub airports globally to much poorer options. On domestic itineraries and where a contract lounge is used, you will not get access to lounges unfortunately. On the whole, if a SkyTeam airline operates their own Business Class lounge then you will be able to access it as a Gold or Elite Plus tier passenger. However…
Clubhouse rules are complicated…
With the entry of Virgin Atlantic, the Clubhouse easily becomes one of the best lounges in the SkyTeam network but, even before joining the alliance, the lounge was already becoming crowded. As such, the Clubhouse has been reclassified within SkyTeam as a First Class Lounge to reduce the impact of even more status passengers. It’s not a one size fits all approach though.
Clubhouse at Heathrow will be available to:
Business and Upper passengers on Virgin Atlantic, Delta Air Lines and Aeromexico
Virgin Gold and SkyTeam Elite Plus passengers travelling on Virgin Atlantic, Delta Air Lines and Aeromexico
Air France La Premiere customers connecting via Paris (although this is now a moot point with Air France moving to T4)
Virgin Australia Velicity Gold, Platinum and The Club passengers flying Virgin Atlantic
Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer Gold, Solitaire PPS and PPS Club flying Virgin Atlantic
Air New Zealand Gold or Elite passengers flying Virgin Atlantic to San Francisco (presumably to connect onto Air NZ)
Award redemptions are equally messy
The initial press release from Virgin Atlantic touted access to the vast majority of SkyTeam member awards on the first day of joining. China Eastern was due to be available for redemption from July 2023 while ITA, which is unavailable on any SkyTeam partner, will not be possible until ‘later in 2023’.
Redeeming miles for SkyTeam partners isn’t easy though. According to Head for Points, the only partners which can be booked online are:
- China Airlines of Taiwan (which I’ll come onto later)
- Korean Air
- Middle East Airlines (MEA)
- Xiamen Air
- Delta (already available)
- Air France KLM (already available)
The remainder, including Garuda Indonesia and Aeromexico, are supposedly bookable by telephone or live chat. That is rather theoretical though as when I’ve contacted Virgin Atlantic to book flights on Garuda, they advised me it won’t be available until May at the earliest.
What about one of the online booking awards? Well…that’s not faring much better. I needed a flight from Southeast Asia, China, Hong Kong or Taiwan in mid-July. With Garuda out of the picture, I thought I would try either Air France KLM or China Airlines. The former tried to put me on some odd routing from Taipei to Seoul on KLM followed by Seoul to London Heathrow on Korean. The latter, at least online, had an equally odd routing from Taipei to San Francisco on China Airlines with a 1h50m connection onto Virgin Atlantic back to London Heathrow. I certainly wouldn’t be comfortable with an international-to-international connection that short through the USA…
Ultimately, I managed to find some space on China Airlines (which I’ll share in my next article how to do so) so contacted Virgin Atlantic Live Chat. They managed to pull up the flights I wanted and so I booked, receiving a confirmation code for Virgin Atlantic and China Airlines within 24 hours…
Except the confirmation code for China Airlines doesn’t work – although that seems to be a common theme across partner awards booked on this airline. I have a confirmation and eTicket...so we will just have to wait and see if I can get on that plane!
Is this the right move?
More partners are good right? More chance to spend my Virgin Points is great? Yes and no.
Having more choice is great, but only if the availability is there and the prices aren’t too expensive – as well as systems which properly function with each other. The final point is most important as Virgin, along with its partial parent Delta, seem to suffer from less-than-ideal IT system implementation which don’t play nice with their partners. Looking for Air France or KLM flights, who have been live for the past four years, is a pain with either a lack of availability or transactions failing.
We are already starting to see a realignment at Virgin Atlantic with some First Class redemptions on ANA increasing in cost to be closer to prices on SkyTeam partners. Equally, will we still see reciprocal status with Singapore Airlines in the coming years? Who knows, but as travel enthusiasts we can hope that Virgin Atlantic keeps the best of all worlds – even if higher prices for awards are inevitable.
