The SkyTeam alliance launched SkyTeam Marine and Offshore to meet the travel needs of the marine and offshore industry.

The new product will offer tailored travel solutions for seafarers and offshore workers.

SkyTeam Marine and Offshore initially will include travel on six SkyTeam members: Aeroflot, Air France, Delta, KLM, Kenya Airways and Saudia.

More airlines are set to participate in the coming months.

The carriers will offer one-way and roundtrip special fares to more than 1,000 global destinations with special conditions for baggage allowance and ticket flexibility to meet the travel needs of ship crews and offshore workers.

It is managed by IAS Global (International Airline Services), a company created in 1994 by KLM to meet the demands of increasing globalization of the marine and offshore crew travel markets.

IAS specializes in the provision of air travel for the shipping, oil and gas and alternative energy industries.

Although it initially offered its pricing and ticketing services exclusively to marine travel agents in the UK on behalf of KLM, it expanded rapidly to other European territories within a year.

It established a US presence as well, opening IASE Americas in Houston in 1995, and took over KLM’s offshore oil and gas industry travel business in the same year.

It now operates three subsidiaries: IAS Europe, IAS Americas and IAS Asia. It also has a partnership with Dnata in the Middle East.

SkyTeam said working with IAS Global will ensure its product is widely available to M&O specialist travel agencies worldwide through one convenient point of contact.

The marine and offshore travel market is complex and requires highly specialized skills and a different type of service engagement than most other forms of managed travel.

The cost of downtime for a ship or an oil rig is huge, so the crews that service this machinery need to be arranged with speed and precision.