Business Traveller reports that Singapore Airlines and Air France executives recently met to discuss a partnership.

The article cites logical benefits of a partnership means an opportunity to leverage each airlines route network through code-shares, and various other reciprocities like lounges.

Its interesting that the argument for this partnership revolves around the ME3. While we hear a lot about the back and forth between the US3 and ME3 over subsidies, the EU3 (if such a thing exists?) likely have similar issues. In 2015, Carsten Spohr made remarks of the “unfair competition” with the ME3 at the Chamber of Commerce’s Aviation 2015.

So I suppose it isn’t surprising to see partnerships like this, that leverage robust regional networks, such as Air France’s Europe and Africa links, and Singapore’s Asia and Australia routes.

It seems to me, that airlines are seeking out partnerships more often than incorporating new airlines into the big three alliances. I say that despite Qatar and Sri Lankan joining OneWorld Alliance, and Air India joining Star Alliance. But many airlines are establishing partnerships or equity investments.

For example, you have American Airlines’ partnership with Etihad, Alaska, Air Tahiti Nui, and others. Speaking of Alaska, they aren’t in an alliance, rather opting for strategic partnerships that cross alliance bounds.

So, is it odd for Singapore and Air France to be doing this? Probably not. However, the article does cite that Star Alliance is more strict, and that Singapore likely got some sort of waiver. Candidly, Singapore Airlines seems to be less and less aligned with Star Alliance, over the years, given some equity investments like Virgin Australia.

I’m not really sure what kind of time frame we’re looking at here, but it seems to me, that such a partnership could be interesting, especially if KrisFlyer points can be used on Air France metal. They perhaps aren’t the most luxurious airline flying, but Air France certainly flies to some unique places, even if they may not all be the best timed flights.

Besides, you can transfer most of the transferrable currencies to KrisFlyer, so that just opens even more of the world up for award redemptions!