Air India or Jet Airways, who will join Star Alliance?

[kiwiandrew]

STAR ALLIANCE AND AIR INDIA PUT AIR INDIA’S MEMBERSHIP APPLICATION ON HOLD

I've just been reading the same story that you quoted. I have to say I nearly fell off my chair laughing it is one of the funniest examples of polite doublespeak I have read in a long time - my two favourite parts I have requoted below from your post.

Star Alliance CEO, Jaan Albrecht said: “With the collective decision to put the integration efforts on hold today we aim to contribute to Air India’s flexibility to concentrate on its ongoing strategic reorientation. In this process our member carriers will continue to provide assistance to Air India wherever required.”

The part underlined appears, on first glance, to be English, but seriously, what is it supposed to mean other than "we plan to give them enough rope so that they can go and hang themselves"

Existing bilateral relationships with Star Alliance member airlines are not affected by this decision, which also leaves room to discuss a potential Alliance membership at a future stage, if deemed appropriate by both parties.

What a wonderfully diplomatic way of saying "When hell freezes over"

[RoMax]

When you think about it. This must be the most embarrassing for AI and India in a very long time. It's the first airline ever (as far as I know) of wich the alliance invitation is being revoked after they failed to meet alliance standards.

India can react in two ways. Finally accept that they can't go on like this and finally fundamentaly change the way they handle aviation in their country (especially they way they manage AI) or... they can get very angry and try to sabotage 9W and all Star members (LH could forget their A380's to India for exemple as this decision was "on hold" because of the AI star entry).

BTW, it seems Boeing felt like there was bad news comming for Air India. The first flight of the first B787 for Air India ended in an emergency landing yesterday after a flight controls problem.

[fretn]

Wow great news for the scissor hub in BRU for the short term! Now, BRU might think about expansion of their non-schengen gates...

[RoMax]

Wow great news for the scissor hub in BRU for the short term! Now, BRU might think about expansion of their non-schengen gates...

Didn't they already...some time ago they announced the extension of the A-pier (together with some other things) with gates for widebodies and narrowbodies. So that SN (and Star?) could operate all their flights in the A-pier.

[Conti764]

Wow great news for the scissor hub in BRU for the short term! Now, BRU might think about expansion of their non-schengen gates...

They will. Don't know when they start, but by 2015 the A pier should be extended with additional gates, which will have non shengen facilities (customs, border control, incoming/outgoing pax seperated,...) This way Star Alliance can incorporate its 'All under one roof'-concept at BRU...

[fretn]

So we are moving towards a star hub then! Good news for the airport!

[Bralo20]

According to this it seems that *A can say for good goodbye to 9W... *A apparently asked the Indian government to sign a letter that they won't object to 9W joining *A (which they had allready promised in the past) but it seems that the government wasn't willing to hold their word and refused to sign the agreement. *A denied AI entrance to their alliance as a result...

http://www.livemint.com/2011/08/0122384 ... l?atype=tp

[RoMax]

As said before, they want 9W, with or without AI. But India is so corrupt they can't get 9W altough 9W also wants Star (otherwise they would already have announced they would join Skyteam).

Anyway, several government officials say they will "punish Star Alliance in the way 'they deserved it' " and that "they can forget 9W" and even "Star Alliance can forget India".
So is this a big suprise? No it isn't, as I said in one of my previous posts, they can understand that they are wrong or they can become very angry. And it seems to be the last.

Star Alliance will have a difficult time in India (probably they used the words like "on hold" to rebuild a connection between Star and India when they really can't get anything done anymore in India). And LH can forget their A380's to India wich they requested (decision was "on hold" until AI would join Star).

Wonder why it's being said that India can't become a superpower like China because they are just too corrupt.

[Bralo20]

If this information is correct then it appears that 25 members of the 27 members within Star Alliance voted AGAINST Air India joining the Alliance... If true this is almost an unanimous vote against them...



http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/busine ... 71869.html

[kiwiandrew]

I have just read a very interesting article, of course I can't vouch for the accuracy, but if it is correct it makes for fascinating/scary reading ( and I have to wonder what their source(s) are)


http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/busine ... 71869.html

Of the 27 member airlines at Star Alliance, 25 voted against AI in July when the airline was due to join the global network.

With 31,000 employees on-board, AI's aircraft-to-employee ratio is 1:280, which is unheard of in any international airline.
At that ratio Brussels Airlines would have a staff of around 15 000 (I believe actual numbers at SN are around 3 300)

AI, after merging with former Indian Airlines in 2007, has made cumulative losses of over Rs 13,000 crore.

Ok, so 1 crore = 10 000 000 - therefore Rs 13 000 crore = Rs 130 000 000 000 which , according to

http://www.xe.com/ucc/convert/?Amount=1 ... INR&To=EUR

is the staggering sum of approx EUR 2 000 000 000 losses in the last 4 years !

[regi]

If this information is correct then it appears that 25 members of the 27 members within Star Alliance voted AGAINST Air India joining the Alliance... If true this is almost an unanimous vote against them...



http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/busine ... 71869.html

democracy in business. Good lesson for the country which calls itself he world's largest democracy
OK, back to the drawing board.

[RoMax]

If this information is correct then it appears that 25 members of the 27 members within Star Alliance voted AGAINST Air India joining the Alliance... If true this is almost an unanimous vote against them...



http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/busine ... 71869.html

WOW, I expected that many of the Star members would have voted against, but this even means not all their Star codeshare partners voted for AI as they have 7 Star codeshares (including Adria )
I would like to know if LH voted for AI or not as their future in India always strongly depended on the relation with AI (when LH wanted something in India, India said ok if you work together with AI/get AI in Star/...). But if LH would really wanted them in Star I would think they asked at least all their daughters (SN, LX, OS, BD) to vote for AI. But with only 2 that voted for AI that's impossible.

[tolipanebas]

Air india just isn't worthly for STAR.

I bed LH voted in favour of them nevertheless only to get better access to the Indian market, something which is of great personal interest to them, but I do hope SN voted against Air India nevertheless, especially as they have a strategic interest in keeping 9W firmly embedded at BRU, something which would have been highly impossible after Air India's membership.

Now however, things look pretty good for SN: IF 9W could join STAR, it will put BRU even more firmly on the map as a STAR hub and make SN even more important to LH... at least until they try to lure 9W to move their cissor hub to MUC that is.

[sn26567]

"Business Traveller" is organising a poll on whether 9W will join Star Alliance as a result of the refusal to allow AI in. Results are currently mixed, with a small majority believing that 9W will be admitted:

https://www.businesstraveller.com/polls ... r-Alliance

[Conti764]

When in a few days the dust has settled, I think the situation is completely different again. The Indian government has just been 'insulted' by Star Alliance and now wants to have a 'look how tough we are'-attitude...

Let's have a view of the situation here... If India is really going to harras Star Alliance, things won't change at all for AI. If 9W is barred from joining Star Alliance, Skyteam has the choice between AI and 9W? Why on earth would ST go for AI if they'd have the choice? So 9W ends up in Skyteam and Air India ends up nowhere, except for the desert maybe...

If the GOI is going to make life sore for Star Alliance, AI might/will loose all agreements with current Star Alliance airlines, thus becoming quite isolated. Oneworld has IT and Skyteam would have 9W, both alliances having no reason whatsoever to extend their excisting agreements with AI, nor close new agreements. This would leave AI all alone, accept for some small non-alliance airlines agreements. Eventually it will hurt AI even more.

The smartest thing for the GOI to do, would be to allow 9W an entry in Star Alliance and persuade Skyteam to take AI. The reason why I put AI with Skyteam is merely because of the fact that I don't see AI joining Star Alliance no matter what outcome this incident has.

[RoMax]

Sounds all very logicall. Just hope India is as smart to know they could ruin it even more for AI. The GOI proved before that they can do very stupid things wich are only in their own disadvantage.

[RoMax]

And as expected, the long standing relationship (since 2002) between Air India and Lufthansa is at danger.

Air India is blaming Lufthansa for their rejected alliance membership and it asked the ministry of civil aviation to do something about it. A top official in the ministry said: “Air India has raised issues about Lufthansa and Star Alliance. We are considering the issues raised, and appropriate action will be taken.

At a Star meeting in December 2010 Lufthansa suggested that the process of Jet Airways' integration into the alliance would start immediately after Air India's entry. Air India objected the proposal and said 9W had not even government approval to join Star (wich is needed).

Air India has said the enhanced bilateral opportunities extended to the German airline should be reviewed by the government.
It has communicated to the ministry it had supported the exchange of additional traffic rights for Lufthansa as part of an understanding that included the German airline’s support to its entry into Star Alliance. The state-owned carrier said Swiss was allowed to continue operations by the government after it was bought over by Lufthansa only because of Lufthansa’s support to Air India. Air India said to the ministry they should relook at such things.

Air India says they agreed that 9W could join after they joined Star theirself, but Star and LH wanted it to be an essential thing before AI could join, AI didn't wanted this.

http://www.financialexpress.com/news/ai ... d/827404/1

http://www.business-standard.com/india/ ... to/444929/

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/lufth ... er/827330/

[fretn]

They should know that they stand no chance against the German government. As soon as India tries to blocks any of LH flights it's going to get really ugly. Just like EK versus Canada.

[RoMax]

Hmm, AI wants the ministry to "punish" Lufthansa/Star Alliance, but the ministry now says they don't have any problem with another airline joining Star Alliance. They just don't understand why AI's application was rejected.

The Minister has gone on record stating that we have no problems with any another Indian airline joining the alliance. But we do not understand why Air India's application was rejected. If they are trying to arm-twist us by blocking Air India and bringing in another airline, it would not work,

They also said there is currently no application of any airline to get permission to join Star.
Ministry officials said Jet approached Star for membership in 2007 (?) but has not yet made a full application.

The ministry source also says some airlines were against Air India joining Star Alliance, mainly because of the delays of AI in getting a passengers service system and safety and security concerns (even AI pilots wrote letters to Star Alliance to inform them about bad safety).

A source from Star Alliance says United and Air Canada raised concerns about AI's entry, both have codeshares with Jet Airways.
Some members of Star Alliance held a meeting in Mumbai last Wednesday about de suspension of Air India's application (and probably also about Jet Airways?).

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/ind ... epage=true

[kiwiandrew]

Hmm, AI wants the ministry to "punish" Lufthansa/Star Alliance, but the ministry now says they don't have any problem with another airline joining Star Alliance. They just don't understand why AI's application was rejected.

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/ind ... epage=true

I read that story too, while I would like to believe it I think that it seems to be quite common practice in India for anonymous civil servants to talk to the media without any official clearance, and I suspect that the views they attribute to the ministry are often their own.

I am certainly not aware that the Minister has ever gone on record as stating that he does not have a problem with another Indian airline the alliance, as was mentioned in the article.