Founding member SAS has left Star Alliance

On 1 September 2024, a historic aviation moment occured as SAS has left the Star Alliance. The airline was one of the alliance's founding members and it's a very uncommon thing for a founding airline to leave its alliance. It only happened once before, in 2000, when founding oneworld-member Canadian Airlines left it as it was acquired by Air Canada.

The Star Alliance was established at Frankfurt on 14 May 1997 by Air Canada, Lufthansa, SAS, Thai, and United Airlines. Since then, the alliance has grown to 25 airlines and has the largest marketshare of the three major alliances.

Starting 1 September 2024, SAS is now a member of SkyTeam, which is the result of Air France-KLM acquiring a 19,9% non-controlling stake in SAS. The airline group also has the option to become a majority owner in SAS in the coming years, depending on how SAS will perform after it has extensively reorganized over the last years.

Photo by Star Alliance.