Purely from a passenger perspective Star does need help, but the question is - is it any better than the competition (ie: oneworld, skyteam, wings) and does it add value? The lounge access is great. The lack of a top top tier level (ie: Star Platnum) is bad in that there is no difference to a foreign carrier's rep for the top tier status of your local airline (eg: UA, SQ).. If I make the top tier on UA (eg: 1K) should I not receive something more from the star members than a 1P would? I understand over in oneworld land, emeralds can use F lounges whilst sapphires can only use C lounges. The problem there is though that only several member programs have 3 elite tiers (LH comes to mind).

Having said that I find most star carriers do recognise the elite status (ie: *G). SK is definately the best, and no guesses for who is worst in this regard.

Certainly the airlines love it if they can pour traffic through eachother and boulster their own revenues. In this respect I'd say star and oneworld would be essentially even with the exception that the BA/AA transatlantic issue must hurt both of them in the bottom line whereas UA/LH/BD/SK have it pretty good.

A new alliance wide promo would be good, but don't forget they just had the 55,555 promo so it hasn't been THAT long. The best way that Star could improve, from the selfish elite pax point of view:

1. Get starnet up and running so award and booking availability is real time and available to all carriers. This would also allow proper seemles checkin

2. *P status for the top tier FF members (ie: 100,000 miles+). The perk is top of upgrade lists for oversold flights etc and access to F lounges by Star carriers and perhaps waiving of fees

3. (related to 1) get the whole boarding pass issuance thing fixed. UA should be able to issue for LH and VO, and SQ should be able to issue for NZ, OZ and BD.. etc.. One idea is for all of them to move to a generic "Star Alliance" stock such that each carrier can read the other's generated paper. Surely a paper and time saving device, though with most carriers having different systems no doubt this is way, way, easier said than done.

Finally, quit with the euro and asia carriers. If Star wants to expand, go after EK and SA and to give coverage where it's needed rather than overlapping eachother's backyards (eg: LO/SK/LH/OS and SQ/TG/OZ/NH).

Last but not least, pull QF out of oneworld and into Star!! Yes, I'm dreaming on that one!

------------------
RichardMEL, UA 1K
A Star Alliance Member.