SkyTeam CEO Patrick Roux on the goal to be the ‘most integrated’ airline alliance 

In June 2025, SkyTeam, the youngest of all three major global airline alliances, will turn 25. 

From the four original founding members, Delta Air Lines, Air France-KLM, Aeroméxico, and Korean Air, SkyTeam has grown to encompass 19 carriers from all over the world.  

AeroTime spoke with SkyTeam CEO Patrick Roux to better understand the current state of the alliance, its inner workings, and what sets it apart from its global competitors, Star Alliance and oneworld. 

A telecommunications engineer by background, Roux is an airline industry veteran who, prior to leading SkyTeam, held a string of senior roles at Air France-KLM at different locations around the world.  

“I started in revenue management, implementing the first yield management system at Air France,” he said. “That was prior to becoming the Chief of Staff of Air France’s CEO.”  

A key development in Roux’s career took place in 2004, with the successful merger of Air France with Dutch flag carrier KLM. As the airline’s then Head of Marketing, Roux was instrumental in defining and implementing the group’s dual marketing strategy, a set up that remains in place to this day.  

One project Roux is particularly proud of is the merging of both carrier’s loyalty programs to create the Flying Blue frequent flyer program. 

“It sounded like a crazy project at the time because it was the first time in the industry that two major loyalty programs merged,” Roux said. “And we did it. That was very exciting.”  

After this achievement, Roux moved to New York to head Air France-KLM’s United States operations, just in time to oversee the group’s closer integration with Delta Air Lines and to forge partnerships with Latin American carriers such as fellow SkyTeam member Aeroméxico and GOL in Brazil. 

“These were the early days of the joint venture with Delta,” he said.  

Since 2009, Air France-KLM and Delta Air Lines have been in a joint venture to manage their transatlantic operations. 

“We completed the integration of our commercial teams in the US into Delta’s organization, and they did the same in Europe,” Roux said. “So, we created a very powerful sales tool. That was my first strong interaction with Delta.”  

In 2008, Delta Air Lines acquired Northwest Airlines, a carrier which had a long history of cooperation with KLM, which made the integration a lot easier. Roux then headed to the Asia-Pacific region, with a role analogous to the one he held in the US. From there he helped establish or consolidate strong partnerships with a handful of Asian carriers, such as China Eastern Airlines and Vietnam Airlines. 

“It became quite obvious that I had a passion for alliances and when the position of Head of Alliances at Air France-KLM became vacant, I was appointed to that position,” said Roux, who took on the post of SVP Alliances at Air France-KLM in 2016. 

The role was a natural conduit for Roux to become the CEO of SkyTeam five years later.  

How to manage an airline alliance 

But how does managing an airline differ from managing an alliance? What is the governance structure of an alliance like SkyTeam? And what mechanisms hold so many different carriers together? 

“We have the CEO meeting, which takes place twice a year and we call it the ‘Alliance Board’, and we also have another meeting, which we call ‘Executive Board’. The latter is roughly composed of the CCOs of each of the members and its purpose is more business-oriented, aiming to define priorities and projects.” Roux explained. “We have it three or four times per year. At this executive board we also appoint the members that will act as sponsors of each of our strategic projects and priorities.”  

He continued: “It’s what we call co-creation and co-ownership, that’s our real DNA, our way of working. It’s not a team developing a project and then asking the other members whether they want to use it or not. As a group, we develop projects that make sense for all of our members.”  

But what is SkyTeam’s main selling point for airlines that want to join? And what sets it apart from the other two major alliances? 

“Usually, we are not hunting very actively because, as we always say, we don’t want to be the largest alliance, we want to be the most integrated one,” Roux explained. “Most of the time, one or several of our current members acts as sponsor for an airline that wishes to join. It was the case with Virgin Atlantic and, more recently, with SAS. Those two airlines were already part of an ecosystem which included a significant subset of our members.”  

The two airlines are the latest to become part of SkyTeam with Virgin Atlantic joining in March 2023 and SAS in September 2024.  

“Joining SkyTeam made total sense for them,” Roux added. “Also, from the customer experience side, or to be able to use very strong products like Sky Priority, or to be part of our knowledge exchange program, which shares best practices with all other members. But, again, it all starts with cooperation among a few members, which creates strong benefits for the customer. Thanks to SkyTeam, they can then extend those benefits.”  

So, what requirements must airlines comply with to join SkyTeam? 

“Well, there is a long list of requirements: joining requirements, membership requirements. There are more than 40 of them,” Roux said. “What we do is define a plan together with them [the prospective members] and at the end of this process, we organize an audit.” 

“It was the case for SAS,” he continued. “The audit was done in August, and they joined on the first of September [2024]. What is nice is that this audit is not only done by us, as an alliance, but also by other members. It’s a co-owned process to make sure that all those requirements on the checklist are fulfilled before they join.” 

“By the way,” Roux added. “This audit is not only done during the joining process. We conduct audits on a regular basis to check compliance with our requirements.”  

As usual, whenever alliances are concerned, there is a fine line separating the responsibility of each airline and what pertains to the airline. Roux is clear and straightforward on this. 

“Usually, we don’t act on behalf of the airlines,” he said. “They are the ones selling, operating, and talking to customers. We are acting behind the scenes, creating products that they can benefit from and that they can put in front of their customers, but are not necessarily visible as SkyTeam products. So, we always let our members be in the lead.” 

He continued: “We have some important brands, like SkyPriority, that all our members use, but then it is up to the airline to use them. For example, Air France is organizing its own SkyPriority process at Paris-CDG, while Korean Air is organizing its own SkyPriority process in Seoul (ICN). So, we organize the commonality, the seamlessness, but, at the end of the day, it’s each of the airlines that is implementing these services with their customers.” 

Airport lounges are one of those rare instances where SkyTeam is investing under its own brand.  

Roux explained the rationale behind this.  

“We have five SkyTeam lounges in the world. We decide jointly with the airlines, where do we have a gap, where we don’t have one of our members with a lounge able to accommodate all other members. It then becomes a SkyTeam lounge. It’s one of the exceptions, in which SkyTeam offers a branded proposal directly to the customers.”  

In this regard, Roux did not rule out the launch of other customer-facing products under the SkyTeam brand. One such product could be a SkyTeam around-the-world ticket like those already offered by Star Alliance. 

“We had that for a long time, and we are not now considering a relaunch because there’s a real customer expectation around that,” he said. “That was a B2C product that you could book on the SkyTeam website. If we relaunch it, though, I think it would be more behind the scenes, because we are not a distribution channel.” 

That said, it is ultimately loyalty benefits that many travelers care about when it comes to assessing the different alliances. 

“When you see where the expectations and value creation lie among carriers in an alliance, the number one is network expansion,” Roux said. “But the second one and perhaps if seen from the customer perspective, even the first one, is customer recognition. So, not only being able to earn and burn miles throughout the alliance but also being recognized across the board when traveling on another SkyTeam airline. That’s one of our key roles, to provide the technology that creates this seamless experience.” 

In fact, a lot of what an alliance does relates to the integration of the digital processes that power any modern airline, connecting systems regardless of the software platforms each of the individual airlines is using.  

“It’s a joint IT platform. We call it the ‘digital spine’, and it hosts all these interconnections between different systems that create a seamless experience,” Roux said. “Once an airline is plugged in to our platform, it is immediately connected to all other members. This allows for what we call ‘elite recognition’ among our loyalty members, but also for seamless check-in, baggage tracking, real time flight information and so on. For example, a Delta customer can stay in the Delta app and check all this information when traveling on Korean Air, for instance.”  

A recurring topic when talking about alliances is whether the model is still as relevant as it used to be at the time of its creation, particularly after many individual members have sought their own bilateral partnerships with non-aligned carriers or even, in some instances, with members of competing alliances. Roux, of course, has a strong opinion about this matter. 

“This has been said for at least 10 years, that the alliances are from the past and that the ‘new black’ is the joint ventures or equity partnerships,” he said. “Well, first of all, alliances have shown their power when they are in place. But there are also some limits because they create closed environments, so you need to have a more flexible or hybrid model and extend it to other partners. An alliance can play a very active role in that.”  

Secondly, Roux noted how the COVID-19 pandemic revalidated the alliance model.  

“COVID has shown the power and beauty of being part of a family, especially when you enter into uncharted territory, and you can be quicker in implementing new solutions that were never tried before,” he said. “That was the case at that time, with all the sanitary measures and checks, when scale could play a very important role. The value of alliances has grown again for all these reasons.”  

SkyTeam, for example, has defined rules to regulate how much its member airlines can partner outside of the alliance. 

“The way to do it is to define a kind of flexibility bandwidth. If you remain within the bounds of this bandwidth, defined as a percentage of your business volume that takes place within the alliance, the more you’re allowed to be unfaithful,” Roux said jokingly.  

“That’s quite a virtuous circle, because the more you work through the alliance, the more tolerance you get,” he continued. “When you exceed this bandwidth, you have to go to the board to get a waiver and also to give a chance to SkyTeam to get first refusal rights and make sure that if you go outside sky team, you have first explored all other opportunities to partner within the alliance.” 

However, Roux added that this option is not used often. 

So, is there a natural limit to an alliance’s growth? 

“There’s a limit which is linked to complexity,” he said. “You cannot manage 100 airlines, otherwise, you will align on something that will be not meaningful.”  

Roux also spoke about the sort of criteria that determine which airlines get invited to join an alliance like SkyTeam. 

“It’s a mix of size and complementarity,” he said. “We need to have big partners, Tier A partners, in all regions, and we also complement them with more local ones that can bring different flavors to the alliance. But other than that, we try to make sure that the members are bringing something, either a home market or a unique flavor, customer experience or specific knowledge about a topic.” 

“It is all of this combined that makes the power of SkyTeam,” he added.  

Here, Roux returned to the recent arrival of Virgin Atlantic, which was already partly owned by Delta Air Lines, and SAS, which made the switch from Star Alliance after receiving a substantial investment from Air France-KLM. 

“The two of them are bringing a kind of new joiner energy, which is really great. It is a totally new thing for Virgin Atlantic because they were unaligned and their whole model was built on their independence and the uniqueness of their customer experience. So, it was totally new for them to be part of a wider family,” Roux said. “But they immediately saw the benefit and beauty of extending their customer benefits while keeping this unique DNA and brand. They bring to the alliance this full focus on customer experience, and that’s very good.”  

Roux also spoke positively about SAS.  

“SAS is different. They know, of course, what an alliance is because they were a founding member of Star Alliance. So, for them, it was a no-brainer to join another alliance. What they bring is a deep knowledge of alliances and a lot of professionalism, energy, and enthusiasm. They also bring something unique, which is being a Scandinavian airline, adding to our network all the extra reach in the northern regions,” he explained.  

At this point in the interview, Roux underlined the curious fact that SkyTeam is currently the only alliance serving both the northernmost destination in the world, Svalbard (LYR), Norway, and the southernmost one, Ushuaia (USH), Argentina, with a scheduled commercial air service. 

“But on top of that, they [SAS] are bringing something else: a concern about sustainability, which is, as you know, quite sharp in the Nordic countries,” he continued. “So, they are also contributing to our strategy about sustainability.”  

And, just as some carriers are joining SkyTeam, another may be on its way out. If and when Lufthansa finalizes its acquisition of ITA Airways, the Italian airline is expected to gravitate towards the Star Alliance family.  

When it came to this topic, Roux was brief. 

“Now it’s in the hands of the European Commission, which needs to give its final approval in November [2024],” Roux said “If it’s confirmed, we’ll organize the transition with them. It will make sense. The same way it makes sense for us to move, but we are waiting for their go-ahead because it will be their decision.”  

Roux also highlighted how, in the case of SAS, the transition between different airlines was relatively quick and smooth. 

“It takes between one and a half and two years for the joining process, but in the case of SAS, it took only between six and seven months to make it happen,” he said. “This is also because of their professionalism and the deep knowledge of how alliances work.” 

SkyTeam has also been looking outside of the airline industry to provide more transportation options to its passengers. In September 2024, the alliance signed an agreement with Eurostar to facilitate connectivity between air and rail at Paris-CDG airport. Shortly after, SkyTeam also began to collaborate with Italian train operator Trenitalia. 

 “It’s important for us, for tourism. This is, first of all, part of our sustainability strategy to extend the airline experience to train operators. It’s a customer request. It’s a strong customer expectation to be able to combine an airline and a train trip,” Roux said. “For us, it is important to create a seamless experience, as we already do between our member airlines. This is why we engaged first with Eurostar and then with Trenitalia to see how we can extend this seamless customer experience to train operators and connect them to the airlines.” 

Roux clarified that while those train operators can be considered strategic partners, they are not alliance members. “Maybe one day,” he added. 

“From the customer experience angle, we want to create the ability if to not to check-in, because there is not really a check-in the process in the train, at least to offer real time train information,” he said. “For instance, in the Air France app, and to distribute multi-leg segments more easily and also have this customer recognition that I was talking about and be able to earn and burn miles easily when combining the two experiences.” 

Roux also explained how some SkyTeam members already have bilateral agreements with other train operators and how this could serve as a launchpad to expand the alliance’s multimodal offering. 

“What we want to build is something robust, a little bit plug and play that can be used to accelerate agreements with train operators and being able to recognize our joint customers in both systems,” he said. “We are now exploring what pieces we can implement as soon as possible with the train operators.” 

The sustainability challenge 

SkyTeam also considers sustainability to be a non-competitive advantage, something that can be fully shared.  

“Each airline has their own sustainability policies and initiatives, and we’re not doing that on their behalf,” Roux explained “So, our role is to accelerate and exchange the best practices. We feel that it’s necessary to help our members accelerate towards this transition.”  

One way SkyTeam is trying to do this is through friendly competition between alliance members called “The Aviation Challenge”, which aims to test new ideas, evaluate the results and, ultimately, adopt and implement them.   

The Aviation Challenge is already in its third edition, and in 2024 two non-SkyTeam affiliated carriers, Corendon and TUI, are also taking part for the first time.  

“In the first two years it was more about testing new ideas and this time we said, ‘Okay, we want to see how you adopt each other’s ideas in order to accelerate this transition’. We think it’s for the sake of the whole industry, and not only for SkyTeam,” Roux said.  

While the Aviation Challenge is presented as a competition, complete with its own awards ceremony, the main return is the pride of being a good citizen and contributing to accelerating the transition, helping the whole industry to move forward. 

“We don’t consider that as a competitive element,” Roux added. “It is an element of good citizenship. This is probably the main engine in all our members’ motivation.”  

SkyTeam has another platform aimed at creating an innovation ecosystem with technology partners and universities in those countries where it has members. 

“We organize challenges about innovation. It’s like an incubator, to accelerate some digital projects, for example, distribution projects,” he said. “It’s wider than sustainability.” 

In any case, and in addition to the aforementioned initiatives, SkyTeam also has certain benchmarks and guidelines that its members must follow in terms of sustainability. 

“We believe it’s also part of the commitment of SkyTeam members to commit to certain standards. We also created nine sustainability standards, which are being rolled out right now, where all members make certain commitments, not only with regards to climate change and CO2 emissions reduction, but also in areas such as gender parity and social responsibility,” Roux said. “For example, SkyTeam was the first alliance to sign the 25by2025 initiative of IATA [a campaign to drive greater gender equality across the aviation industry – ed. note] a few years ago.” 

Roux highlighted the RISE leadership program launched by SkyTeam, through which each of the member airlines selects one or two female talents who will receive training with a view to becoming future industry leaders.  

What’s next for SkyTeam? 

When it comes to discussing the alliance’s next challenges and milestones Roux mentioned SkyTeam’s Cargo Alliance, the first for a major airline alliance. The program, he explained, aims to offer the world of air freight the same seamlessness that alliances bring to the passenger experience. 

“We can also see the industry’s new challenges popping up. One of them is the new distribution capability (NDC), which also creates some opportunities in the retail arena,” Roux said. “That’s something we are active in and are launching some innovative projects around that, because this is a way to create more concrete benefits for our customers and this is where an alliance can play an active role.” 

Roux concluded the interview by reaffirming the core tenet of the alliance – to act behind the scenes, streamlining the experience its airline members offer to their passengers. 

“The other priorities are to continue creating deeper benefits for our customers, as far as technology, sustainability and loyalty are concerned,” he said. “Those are our main priorities, together with intermodality and the expansion of all these benefits to train journeys.”  The post SkyTeam CEO Patrick Roux on the goal to be the ‘most integrated’ airline alliance  appeared first on AeroTime.

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