Air India optimistic of joining the Star alliance

by Devesh Agarwal

Unlike news reports which indicate Air India will re-commence the joining process with Star Alliance, and therefore leave a possibility of a negative outcome, a press release by the national carrier exudes confidence that the carrier will surely join the alliance.

Air India set to join Star Alliance

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.

What are your thoughts on the airline joining the carrier? Will the second time be the charm? Share your thoughts via a comment.

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Qatar Airways modifies Privilege Club frequent flier programme

By BA Staff

Photo courtesy and copyright Qatar Airways

Ahead of its joining the oneworld alliance, Qatar Airways unveiled details of its exciting new enhancements made to the airline’s frequent flyer programme – Privilege Club. Speaking about the loyalty programme, Qatar Airways Chief Executive Officer Akbar Al Baker said that customer loyalty is very important to the airline’s growth strategy:

Since Qatar Airways’ Privilege Club loyalty programme launch in 2000, it has firmly established itself as one of the leading frequent flyer reward programmes in the industry, with benefits designed with the traveller in mind. This is an exciting time to be a Qatar Airways Privilege Club member. As a “thank you” to our many loyal members who have been with the programme since its inception, we are delighted to offer enhanced member benefits.

Some of the new introductions include: 

Introduction of the New Platinum Tier:

Platinum will be introduced as the highest tier level in the programme, offering superior benefits and privileges to members who have earned at least 600 Qpoints within a 12 month period. Qpoints are awarded to members to achieve a particular membership status.

Some of the exciting benefits for Platinum members include:

• Tier bonus of  an additional 100% of the base miles
• Qcredits- a new reward benefit which can be redeemed for a selection of services
• No Qmiles expiry as long as Platinum members retain the Platinum tier.
• 5% online discount on award tickets
• Special discount for purchases at Qatar Duty Free

Qcredits:

A brand new reward benefit, Qcredits will be awarded to Gold and Platinum members and can be redeemed for a selection of services such as complimentary upgrades and Excess Baggage on Qatar Airways flights, payment of award fees (incurred during the change / cancellation of award tickets) and guest lounge access at Doha International Airport.

New Tier Qualification And Renewal Thresholds:

Upgrades to the next membership tier will now be easy to achieve as Qpoints earned within any 12 month period will be evaluated daily. Privilege Club’s tier renewal criteria has been modified to consider flights in the last 12 or 24 months to make tier renewal more convenient.

Enhanced Member Benefits:

The Family programme which allows main members to pool their Qmiles for quicker awards will be offered to the entire Privilege Club member base. In addition to spouse and children, main members will be able to nominate parents as family members

• Reduced fees and surcharges applicable on award tickets
• Enrolment age into the programme has been reduced to 12 years to encourage young frequent travellers to have their own membership accounts
• Qmiles that have expired or are about to expire can be extended for a minimal fee

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Financial troubles put Kingfisher Airline's entry in to oneworld on indefinite hold

With just one week to go, Kingfisher Airline's entry in to oneworld has been put on "indefinite hold".

An official statement released a few minutes ago, says

India's Kingfisher Airlines and oneworld® today agreed to put the airline's entry into the alliance on hold to give it time to strengthen its financial position.

Quoting oneworld CEO Bruce Ashby

"These are turbulent times for the airline industry in India and many other parts of the world. We have been working closely with Kingfisher Airlines over the past months and it has become increasingly clear recently that the airline needs more time to resolve the financial issues it is confronting before it can be welcomed into oneworld.

"We wish it well during this process and will work with Kingfisher Airlines with the aim of setting a new joining date once it is through this current period of turbulence."

Apparently this sequence of events began a few days ago when Kingfisher Airlines was suspended from the IATA Clearing House (ICH). IATA is the International Air Transport Association which represents the world's airlines. The IATA Clearing House is similar to an inter-bank clearing house, but for the airline industry and provides services settling accounts between the world's airlines, associated companies and travel agents and partners. As per IATA more than 350 members and participants use the ICH to settle millions of dollars worth transactions every day.

As per sources inside Kingfisher, the airline had to keep a security deposit of $3.5 million with ICH. Some days ago, for whatever reason, the airline made its payments using the security deposit. Even though Kingfisher's payments were current, because of no security deposit, the airline was in a default status with the ICH, effectively freezing their account. This made the airline's flight coupons useless since the ICH would not process any Kingfisher document, ticket, or payment. Hence no one in the international airline industry would be able to deal with Kingfisher.

The zeroing of the security deposit also triggered an automatic financial review, so when Kingfisher went back to ICH to replace the deposit and re-activate their account, the ICH, citing the airline's poor financials, demanded an increase in the deposit to a little over $8 million. This unexpected demand has created all sorts of problems for the financially ailing carrier. With Kingfisher's bad luck, Hungarian carrier Malev has also failed yesterday. These development have spooked the member airlines of oneworld, who demanded that Kingfisher first set its house in order before entering the alliance.

It is not clear whether Kingfisher has paid the security deposit and re-activated its ICH account. Calls and messages to the official spokesperson of Kingfisher Airlines were rejected and unanswered.

Kingfisher Airlines Chairman Vijay Mallya put on a brave face and said

"In light of the many priorities centred around Kingfisher Airlines' recapitalisation efforts, we felt it prudent to defer our entry into the alliance for a little while. This will allow us the opportunity to focus on the issues at hand and we look forward to being part of the oneworld alliance very shortly."

Keeping in mind the desperately needed traffic and additional revenue the alliance membership was to bring, this development is a body blow to Kingfisher. Insiders say that Dr. Mallya is going to keep that airline limping along till Foreign Direct Investment in Indian carriers is approved by the Indian government.

Airline sources who are not not authorised to speak to the media, indicate that Kingfisher's entry into oneworld may be re-considered after airberlin and NIKI enter the alliance on March 20. These sources are of the opinion that Kingfisher will enter oneworld before Malaysia Airlines does, but one has to wait and see.

This is the second re-buff to an Indian carrier. Last August, the Star Alliance put the membership of national carrier Air India on indefinite hold.

What is your view? Do these developments spell a death knell for the alliance ambitions of Indian carriers? What will be the impact on Kingfisher?

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