National carrier Air India’s integration as the 29th member of Star Alliance, the world’s largest airline partnership with almost $200 billion in combined revenues, is likely to be completed by May-June this year.
As part of the process, Air India will retrain over 8,000 front-line personnel over the next few months for a more premium customer experience that matches Star Alliance’s standards.
The integration into a global alliance, a first for a domestic airline, will help Air India boost revenues by increasing global connectivity through partner airlines. It will also be able to improve its share of business travellers by gaining access to over 1,000 Star Alliance lounges and lower fuel costs by doing bulk purchases through Star Alliance tie-ups.
Mark F Schwab, CEO of the Germany-based Star Alliance Services, said that there was immense value in Air India joining the global airline alliance. ?We are satisfied with the changes made by Air India in the last year. Star Alliance has also changed some membership requirements and all our 28 members have voted unanimously in favour of Air India. We expect the process (of integration) to be completed by this summer,? he said.
Among other changes required for the integration, which has been in the works for the last several years, Air India has already upgraded its IT platform to SITA’s passenger service system in 2011. However, it will now have to re-paint its fleet with ‘Star Alliance’ livery.
Rohit Nandan, CMD of Air India, said, ?A lot of the work that was done for joining Star Alliance, like upgrading the IT systems, anyway needed to be done to become a modern airline. As for our customer experience, I believe there is always room for improvements.?
