Air India hopes Star Alliance badge will push up revenues

New Delhi/Mumbai: State-owned Air India has joined the largest operating grouping of global carriers, Star Alliance, and expects international revenues to expand 3-4%—up to Rs400 crore—after a complete integration of its operations with the alliance’s member airlines. It also hopes to extend reach to some 800 destinations, up from the 50 cities it touches today.
Air India, owned by the National Aviation Co. of India Ltd, left Jet Airways (India) Ltd behind in the race to join an alliance, whose member airlines carry over 455 million passengers annually or nearly a fourth of global airline traffic. That leaves Jet Airways—and Kingfisher Airlines Ltd, an ambitious Indian airline that expects to fly overseas next year—the other two major Indian carriers to select from One World and SkyTeam, the other two major airline alliances. “For us it is a big sweep. We expect an incremental 3-4% increase in annual revenue on the international sector,” said Jitender Bhargava, Air India’s spokesman.
An analyst said Air India’s brand and service quality would get a boost. “They get projected on the same platform as Lufthansa, and Singapore Airlines. In the short-term, we will see a visible change in service quality as they adopt pre-set standards,” said Mark Martin, aviation analyst with KPMG’s India offices.
Air India passengers will be able to redeem passenger miles on any of the other 19 member carriers, including Lufthansa AG, Singapore Airlines Ltd, US Airways Group Inc., Air Canada and South African Airways.
14/12/07 Tarun Shukla and P.R. Sanjai/Livemint

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Categories: Air India - International Dec 2007, Foreign Dec 2007, NACIL Dec 2007, New Dec 2007