It's REAL !!! AI joins Star Alliance

I wrote yesterday about keeping my fingers crossed about Star Alliance's decision to induct Air India as a member. There also seemed to be some update earlier today. I can now heave a sigh of relief and uncross my fingers. The top brass of Star Alliance met in London yesterday and ...

Air India has been inducted into Star Alliance, and will formally complete the process in mid-July 2014. There was an earlier report that mentioned the effective date as 11 July 2014, and that may well turn out true is now confirmed.


Reuters reports this story here,

Air India Ltd has joined the Star Alliance group of carriers, a spokesman said on Tuesday, a move that could help boost revenues at the loss-making state-run airline.

Executives at Star Alliance met with Air India officials in London on Monday and agreed for the airline, which has been in talks to join since last year, to become its 27th member, Air India spokesman Praveen Bhatnagar told Reuters.

Air India will formally complete the process by mid-July, Bhatnagar said.
Star Alliance and Air India websites do not reflect this yet, but I suppose it is just a matter of time.

It is a big day for Air India - as the first Indian carrier to join a global alliance - and I for one am quite kicked and upbeat about this. The membership is great news both for overseas travellers into India (and of course, members of programs of Star Alliance affiliated airlines), as also Indian travellers who can now access a much wider global footprint that Star Alliance offers. It also makes earning and redeeming miles on Star Alliance carriers that extra bit better, from an Indian standpoint. Finally, there is expectation that with AI joining Star Alliance, the other members of the Alliance can put up a stronger fight against the middle-eastern carriers (outside of those ME airlines, AI has the most flights into the middle-east).

While nothing has been publicly announced at this time, I expect that current Star Alliance members will offer promotions for a limited period, for bookings done on Air India.

It will also be interesting to see how things will pan out for Jet Airways, which currently has partnership arrangements of different sorts with some airlines that are Star Alliance members. I wrote about this briefly a few months back, and you can read my take on that, here.

I also mentioned in my post yesterday about potentially utilising Aegean's Miles & Bonus program as an easy entry into Star Alliance Gold. While AI's entry into Star Alliance doesn't change any of that, it does make it more worth the while. I will write about that, once the specifics about AI's membership terms and conditions are clearly available.


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