by Devesh Agarwal
Air India set to join Star AllianceWhat are your thoughts on the airline joining the carrier? Will the second time be the charm? Share your thoughts via a comment.
The National Carrier is set to join Star Alliance, the leading global alliance of 28 top international carriers. In a major decision today in Vienna, Star Alliance has unanimously decided to lift the earlier suspension of the process for Air India entry into the Alliance. With this decision, final process for eventual entry of Air India has begun. Once the airline becomes a member, Air India passengers will enjoy enormous benefits, including seamless transfers while travelling across the world, more frequent flyer mileage points, code sharing leading to a wider choice of flights and access to facilities at over 1000 lounges worldwide. The Star Alliance network offers 21,900 daily flights to 1328 airports in 195 countries.
Established in 1997, Star Alliance today is the biggest alliance of airlines which offers its customers convenient worldwide reach and a smoother travel experience. In order to become a member, an airline is required to meet and comply with the highest standards of customer service, security and technical infrastructure in the industry.
The present list of members include Adria Airways, Aegean Airlines, Air Canada, Air China, Air New Zealand, ANA, Asiana Airlines, Austrian, Avianca, Brussels Airlines, Copa Airlines , Croatia Airlines , EGYPTAIR, Ethiopian Airlines, EVA Air, LOT Polish Airlines, Lufthansa, Scandinavian Airlines, Shenzhen Airlines, Singapore Airlines, South African Airways, SWISS, TAM Airlines, TAP Portugal, THAI, Turkish Airlines, United Airlines, US Airways.
The Alliance offers passengers a choice of Silver or Gold Status benefits across the alliance relevant to the passengers frequent flyer tier level. The traveller’s status is recognised around the world through out the Star Alliance network at all member airlines. Passengers automatically get the alliance benefits on travelling on the member airline also ensuring more mileage points at the same time.
Whenever a member of the frequent flyer programme travels on any of the Star Alliance member airlines and flies with another member airline he can earn and redeem miles or points on one frequent flyer programme.
