Cape Town: Budget carrier IndiGo has emerged as a dark horse for Star Alliance, a 27-airline grouping, which continues to woo Jet Airways to join it, but remains silent on its five-year old deliberations to induct Air India into its fold.
Airline groupings such as Star Alliance usually give a wide berth to budget carriers, but IndiGo, being the market leader in the Indian market, makes it difficult for any alliance to ignore it. Star Alliance is still keen on Jet Airways in spite of the airline's recent equity deal with Gulf carrier Etihad, while it opened talks with IndiGo, alliance's CEO Mark Schwab told ET.
"We still believe that India is a big enough market and that two members of Star Alliance in India would make a lot of sense. We have more than one partner-carrier in many regions or countries in the world...We continue to dialogue with Jet. Conversation has been going on for some time and we continue to have them," Schwab said.
Meanwhile, Star Alliance has also kept other Indian options open.
04/06/13 Anindya Upadhyay/Economic Times
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Airline groupings such as Star Alliance usually give a wide berth to budget carriers, but IndiGo, being the market leader in the Indian market, makes it difficult for any alliance to ignore it. Star Alliance is still keen on Jet Airways in spite of the airline's recent equity deal with Gulf carrier Etihad, while it opened talks with IndiGo, alliance's CEO Mark Schwab told ET.
"We still believe that India is a big enough market and that two members of Star Alliance in India would make a lot of sense. We have more than one partner-carrier in many regions or countries in the world...We continue to dialogue with Jet. Conversation has been going on for some time and we continue to have them," Schwab said.
Meanwhile, Star Alliance has also kept other Indian options open.
04/06/13 Anindya Upadhyay/Economic Times
