China Southern Airlines will withdraw from SkyTeam! Come and see if your tickets and points are affected.

　　Cctv news: Pay attention to the latest change in civil aviation. From January 1st next year (2019), China Southern Airlines will withdraw from SkyTeam. Many people who often fly want to know whether the points are still valid after quitting the league. Can I still use the package I bought? What will happen to flying in the future?

　　According to the staff of China Southern Airlines, China Southern Airlines withdrew from SkyTeam on January 1, 2019. 2019 is a transition period, and passengers can still enjoy the same services of the alliance. Passengers who purchase tickets from China Southern Airlines and travel before or including December 31, 2019 can enjoy the same services as SkyTeam, such as redemption of points and lounge service. Passengers who have purchased SkyTeam package tickets and China Southern Airlines tickets sold by SkyTeam member companies still enjoy the same transit service, lounge service and frequent flyer miles service. During the transition period, China Southern will no longer sell SkyTeam package products.

Wu Guoxiang, General Manager of China Southern Airlines International Cooperation Department

　　Wu Guoxiang, General Manager of China Southern Airlines International Cooperation DepartmentWe are also negotiating bilateral cooperation with more airlines around the world. In the future, passengers of China Southern Airlines can not only enjoy the service resources of the alliance, but also enjoy the effective connection between such service resources and flights of other airlines in other alliances.

　　News background: What is an aviation alliance?

　　Many passengers may not know, what is an airline alliance? How does the airline joining different alliances affect our passengers’ flight travel?

　　An airline alliance is a cooperation agreement between two or more airlines. At present, the three largest aviation alliances in the world are Star Alliance, SkyTeam and OneWorld.

　　For airlines, the alliance can provide a larger aviation network for a single airline, share maintenance facilities, operating equipment and staff, and support ground handling and empty kitchen operations to reduce costs.

　　For passengers, as long as they become VIP customers of any member in an aviation alliance, they can get the corresponding rights of other member airlines in the alliance and enjoy membership treatment in points exchange, VIP room use, priority boarding, upgrade service, transit and luggage.

　　Professor Zou Jianjun of China Civil Aviation Management Cadre CollegeFor ordinary people, it means that I can go to those places and how many flights I can choose in a day. Now their alliance or deep cooperation is actually providing us with this convenience. Simply put, it is accessibility, which has been greatly improved.

　　It is more convenient for domestic and foreign airlines to cooperate with passengers to take the flight.

　　In recent years, China’s aviation network has been expanding, and the cooperation between domestic airlines and foreign airlines has been deepening. After China Southern withdraws from SkyTeam, it will strengthen cooperation with American airlines. So what changes will the in-depth cooperation between domestic and foreign airlines bring to passengers traveling by air?

　　From 2019, China Southern will cooperate with American Airlines to expand code sharing. After in-depth cooperation between domestic and foreign airlines, first of all, in terms of ticket purchase, passengers can choose more cross-border flights.

　　Wu Guoxiang, General Manager of China Southern Airlines International Cooperation DepartmentAfter the implementation of the sharing and cooperation agreement, it has extended to 21 cities in the United States through the hub of American Airlines. We have 64 flights between China and the United States every day by China Southern Airlines and American Airlines.

　　When flying, domestic and foreign airlines will cooperate to achieve "one vote to the end" for cross-border flights. Take Guangzhou to Washington as an example. Before cooperation, passengers need to buy tickets for two trips from Guangzhou to new york and new york to Washington, and go through check-in and baggage check-in procedures twice. After the cooperation, the check-in procedures during transit will be omitted, and at the same time, the membership mileage and lounge of the two airlines will be shared.

　　Professor Zou Jianjun of China Civil Aviation Management Cadre CollegeThis kind of cooperation between overseas airlines and domestic airlines will make it more and more convenient for us people to enter and leave the country, which means that we will have more and more redundancy.