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| Edited By: Sindhu Bhattacharya |Source: DNA |Updated: Mar 30, 2018, 03:31 AM IST
Air India’s plan to join Star Alliance appears to be in jeopardy, yet again.
Despite repeated breaches of deadline to put systems in place and become eligible to join this prestigious international airline grouping, AI is far from training its staff for the purpose. Its deadline to join the Alliance is March 2011.
According to airline officials, “There are some delays in training”, but industry sources tell DNA Money that the continuous fights between employees of the erstwhile Air India and Indian Airlines (which were merged to create the present Air India) are making matters worse.
To become eligible for Star Alliance, AI has to finish employee training and also integrate its twin IT platforms to get on a single ticketing platform. Even today, two separate codes - ‘IC’ for erstwhile Indian Airlines and ‘AI’ for Air India are being used. If it does manage to join the Alliance, passengers will get benefits such as a single ticket for onward journeys on other Star Alliance member flights and accrue other frequent flyer benefits.
The unintended beneficiary of this delay by Air India could well be Jet Airways, which is believed to be rather keen to join the Star Alliance and certainly wouldn’t mind doing so before Air India!
When contacted, an AI spokesperson declined to comment on this issue. But Markus Ruediger, director-media relations at Star Alliance Services in Frankfurt, told DNA Money, “One of the open items is introduction of the new Passenger Service System at Air India, which needs to be in place prior to all necessary links for the delivery of the Star Alliance customer promises being installed (for example, through check-in, reading of frequent flyer cards, etc). We expect the work to be completed during the course of the coming year. The overriding principle being that all requirements must be fulfilled in order for all customer benefits to be delivered from day one of membership.”
Ruediger declined to confirm if Jet Airways is also being considered, merely saying “Out of principle we never disclose the names of potential new member carriers until the time an official announcement can be made. For India, our priority is to complete the integration of Air India.” Though Jet has never officially evinced interest in joining Star Alliance ahead of Air India, it has been forging independent code share alliances with several international carriers, many of them Star Alliance members.
Recently, the Ministry of Civil Aviation is believed to have taken a call to bar Jet from entering any new code share agreements till Air India’ entry into Star Alliance in March 2011.
