Following last week’s suspension of S7 from oneWorld, now SkyTeam and Aeroflot have also “agreed” to suspend the alliance membership of the carrier until further notice.
Skyteam was quick and has already removed Aeroflot from its list of member carriers on the website while Aeroflot itself still dons the Skyteam Logo on the main page, solely a cosmetic icon for the time being.
With this step, benefits related to Aeroflot’s frequent flyer program Aeroflot Bonus will no longer be available within the alliance (at least officially, the one or other lounge access might still slide depending on how well informed the member carriers and lounge staff are.
SkyTeam and Aeroflot have agreed to temporarily suspend the airline’s SkyTeam membership
SkyTeam and Aeroflot have agreed to temporarily suspend the airline’s SkyTeam membership. We are working to limit the impact for customers and will inform those affected by any changes to SkyTeam benefits and services.
Aeroflot Bonus, the carrier’s frequent flyer program has suspended the issuance of mileage awards for all alliance carriers.
It would not be very wise to continue accumulating miles in the Aeroflot Bonus program for obvious reasons. Who knows how “temporary” the exclusion of SU from Skyteam and their partners will hold or if they will ever gain full membership again.
Aeroflot has been delisted from the Skyteam website:
OneWorld has also removed S7 from its reigns as I reported last week:
OneWorld Alliance Suspends Russia’s S7 Airlines Membership Until Further Notice
Both carriers have suspended their international routes and are only operating domestically following bans of governments for Russian airlines to operate in their airspace and the strong likelihood of the aircraft being impounded at a foreign airport (at least those that are entertaining the sanctions).
It’s hard to say how many frequent flyer program members either airline has outside of Russia. Both programs became a bit prominent over the past few years as they offered a status match that many used to access lounges in other parts of the world as it is so often when obscure/niche carriers. This has been years ago though and with Covid in between I guess most of these matches would have expired by now.
Aeroflot – contrary to S7 – was a pretty common carrier that even many Europeans used for flights, especially to Asia. With things being the way they are now those routings and “fun stops” in Moscow are off the table for now.
Conclusion
Aeroflot has been suspended from Skyteam and the alliance has put out a statement saying that this was a mutual decision. Considering that there is really nothing useful about the membership right now for SU as well as being a reputational liability for Skyteam it’s probably best to suspend it at this point until things get back to normal again which admittedly might take a few years.
Are Aeroflot, S7 and other Russian carriers going to become entirely domestic carriers for years or will some friendly neighboring countries allow them to fly there in the near future?
