Air India soars ahead with Star Alliance

Air India played host to the first-ever Star Alliance Chief Executive Board (CEB) meeting held in India. This follows the national carrier’s joining the world’s longest serving and most comprehensive airline alliance in July this year.

Speaking to both local and foreign media in New Delhi today, Mr Rohit Nandan, CMD Air India, thanked all CEOs for travelling to India and for a productive two-day meeting. He stressed upon the fact that for Air India has been vastly improving its performance parameters in all the areas by constantly upgrading its service standards in every area of its operation. Air India becoming a member of the prestigious Star Alliance is a key pillar of the airline’s turnaround strategy, along with the fleet renewal, network optimisation and an initiative to improve quality of service.

Mr Nandan added that the cooperation with the Star Alliance member airlines is of mutual interest and will grow from strength to strength. "We are looking at closer interaction with member airlines and have signed a code share agreement with Air Canada besides signing MOUs with Avianca and EVA Air recently. By March we aim at having code share agreements with most Star Alliance member airlines”. Speaking on Air India’s restructuring Mr Nandan reiterated that Air India is moving in the right direction and the benchmark set for Air India in the turn-around plan have been achieved and we hope to be cash positive by 2018.

Air India has witnessed an increase of 33% in the number of passengers transferring between Air India and other Star Alliance member carriers, mainly through Delhi or Mumbai but also at other airports such as London or Newark. Frequent Flyers are also taking advantage of the Alliance benefits, with over 80,000 having earned miles while flying on Air India since July and more than 20,000 Air India Flying Returns FFP members having miles credited for flights on other Star Alliance member carriers. With its 99-strong fleet, a mix of B787 Dreamliners, B777s, A330s and the A320 family, it is one of the youngest in the world. A key boost to the brand comes from the comfort that these aircraft offer.