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The CE of Scandinavian carrier SAS, Anko van der Werff, acknowledges that leaving Star Alliance – which it co-founded – is an emotionally difficult decision, but believes the potential for tighter co-operation with partners within SkyTeam provides greater opportunities. SAS was a founding member of Star Alliance in May 1997, alongside Air Canada, Lufthansa, Thai Airways and United Airlines. However, it is set to leave to the global grouping this year under a deal to take it out of its formal financial restructuring process with a consortium including Air France-KLM. Under the plan SAS would join its new partners Air France and KLM in the SkyTeam alliance. Speaking during a session at the Airline Economics Growth Frontiers event in Dublin on 29 February (sic?), van der Werff says it is close to finalising a date for the switch of alliance. ”There will be a date when there is a cutover from Star to SkyTeam,” he says. ”Clearly with SkyTeam we are already talking and trying to guage if they are interested, and yes they are. So they do want to have us and I think that is all going to flow quite nicely. But it is also complicated, because as an organisation, we were one of the founders of Star Alliance, so the organisation, the relationships we’ve built with individuals at Star, it’s not an easy emotional decision. But we know why we are doing it and are very excited by that future.” While the initial goal is membership of the alliance, a key attraction is the potential to work together with its new partners in a transatlantic joint venture, something that it never became part of within Star Alliance. ”I’ve been very open about it, I think Ben Smith of Air France-KLM has been very open about it, we have felt left out of some of the Star things – such as the Transatlantic joint venture,” he says. “I started in KLM in 2000 with the Northwest joint venture, that became the Air France-KLM/Delta joint venture. So I know how powerful that can be,” he says. ”I know for SAS we have been missing that, so I am very much looking forward to consummating the marriage and making sure we become part of something bigger.”<br/>

ITA Airways plans to offer summer capacity some 24% higher year on year in 2024, with a particular focus on international expansion, as it awaits the European Commission’s ruling on a potential investment from Lufthansa Group. Outlining its traffic and capacity performance on 5 February, the state-owned carrier said it handled 15m passengers in 2023, a 50% rise year on year, on a load factor up five percentage points at 79%. ITA’s predecessor, Alitalia, handled 21m passengers in its last full year of pre-Covid operation, 2019, also on a load factor of 79%. Last year began with Lufthansa Group agreeing to acquire a minority stake in ITA, citing among other things, the “right-sizing” of the Italian flag carrier compared with the Alitalia operation. The European Commission said in January this year that it was launching an in-depth investigation into the deal, citing competition concerns. As that process continues, ITA’s 24% capacity growth in 2024 will be driven by a 43% rise in intercontinental flying, a 30% increase on international routes and a 15% rise on domestic services, it says. “Our growth goes hand in hand with the recovery of tourism, which is approaching pre-pandemic levels,” says ITA CCO Emiliana Limosani. The carrier notes that it is launching long-haul flights from Rome Fiumicino to Chicago and Toronto this year, as well as new services to destinations in Africa and the Middle East. ITA’s 56 destinations this summer comprise 16 domestic, 26 international and 14 intercontinental, it says. Alitalia served around 100 destinations in 2019. The carrier plans to “gradually resume” flights to Tel Aviv in the summer season, it adds, after they were suspended last year amid security concerns relating to the Israel-Hamas conflict.<br/>

A man has died after coughing up "litres of blood" on board a flight from Bangkok to Munich, passengers have said. The German national, said to be aged 63, looked ill as soon as he and his wife boarded the Lufthansa plane on Thursday, according to witnesses. The man was sweating heavily and appeared to be struggling to breathe - but his partner told the crew he was safe to fly and tired after running to catch the flight, reports claim. Passenger Martin Missfelder said the man's condition rapidly deteriorated soon after take-off and he began spitting blood into a bag - before it began gushing out of his mouth and nose. He told Swiss news outlet Blick: "It was absolute horror, everyone was screaming." Missfelder said the man lost "litres of blood" and the walls of the plane were splattered. Flight attendants spent around 30 minutes trying to resuscitate the man before he was declared dead. The Airbus A380 plane then turned around and returned to Thailand's capital after just an hour-and-a-half into the 12-hour journey. Missfelder told Blick there was "chaos" when the plane landed. He added the worst thing was seeing the wife of the dead man going through customs all alone while "enduring all the formalities". A spokesperson for Lufthansa told MailOnline: "Although immediate and comprehensive first aid measures were taken by the crew and a doctor on board, the passenger died during the flight. Our thoughts are with the relatives of the deceased passenger. We also regret the inconvenience caused to the passengers of this flight."<br/>

Turkish Airlines, the flag carrier of Turkey, has added a new service to its digital offerings for passengers by launching the TK Wallet application. The new digital product, TK Wallet, enables the airline's Miles&Smiles members to make payments and refunds faster, said a statement from Turkish Airlines. The airline also offers an opportunity to earn TK Money on top of the refund amount for ticket and additional service purchases made through its mobile application and website. TK Money earned through refund transactions via TK Wallet, which is offered in four different currencies (Turkish Lira, Euro, US dollar and British pound) through Turkish Airlines' online channels, can be used quickly and securely, it stated. On the new launch, CCO Ahmet Olmuştur said: "In line with our digitalization goals, we continuously improve ourselves to implement applications that will facilitate our passengers' travels. We are working to make our services more accessible and continue to introduce innovations that will add comfort to our guests' travel experiences."<br/>

India’s aviation sector is on a roll. In the period January-November 2023, the country’s airlines carried 25% more domestic passengers than in the corresponding period in 2022. In mid-2023, national airline Air India ordered 250 aircraft from Airbus and another 220 from Boeing, worth a total of $US70b at list prices. That order came hot on the heels of an order from India’s leading low-cost IndiGo airline for 500 new Airbus aircraft. In January 2024, Akasa Air, India’s newest airline, announced an order for 150 Boeing 737s. Alongside its commercial airlines, government and private industry are spending big on aviation infrastructure and now there is barely a corner of the country beyond the reach of air travel. If you want, you can take a one-hour flight from Delhi over the Himalayas and land at Leh, capital of Buddhist-infused Ladakh, and stagger off the plane into rarefied air at an altitude of 3256 metres. Two-way air traffic between Australia and India is also booming. In the 12 months to November 2023, 387,000 Indian residents visited Australia, a rise of 40% over the previous 12 months. In the 2022-23 financial year, 435,000 Australian residents visited India. In the previous financial year the figure was 61,000. Qantas halted its non-stop services between Australia and India in 2012 while Air India maintained the Australia-India connection, only pausing during the pandemic. On November 15, 2021 Air India resumed its thrice-weekly Sydney-New Delhi service. Three weeks later, Qantas began operating a non-stop flight between Delhi and Sydney. In the week beginning December 15, 2023, Air India began a thrice-weekly service between Melbourne and Mumbai. This is the first non-stop flight between any Australian city and India’s financial powerhouse since Qantas stopped its Mumbai flights more than a decade ago. Air India operates a non-stop service between Sydney and Delhi but Qantas no longer does. Qantas flight 67 from Sydney makes a stop in Bengaluru, India’s IT capital. Passengers continuing to Delhi are carried aboard an IndiGo flight. Story has more.<br/>