Yaatri

It seems its the Star Alliance disease is going around. It causes delusion and euphoria and belief in exceptionalism. No alliance has made the demand that they must have two airlines to meet the demand. Making demands is the wrong approach for people grounded in reality.

I also remember reading a statement by an AI official something like, "We have a written letter stating that all the requirements have been met."
If the AI official is correct, then Star Alliance was expecting more than what the application entailed.
Here is a link
Air India's Star Alliance Application Suspended
No one thinks that AI is perfect. IN this forum, some posters would make one think that AI is the worst airline ever. Clearly, AI does not have loyal flyers. What we have is equivalent of "Tea Party" and "Birthers", who are very passionate and very vocal.

If Star Alliance is trying to force GoI into submission, AI bashers would turn blue before Star Alliance gets 9W. That would serve Star Alliance right.

Note to those who continually misquote me: The above sentence is not the same thing as Yaatri wanting AI to join Star Alliance or Yaatri wanting 9W to join Skyteam.

mahajanvikas

And how did you all forget the WORST of the lot - EGYPTAIR

yulred

Not really. Left it out deliberately. Their new product is head and shoulders above all of *A's North American carriers.

Some people I know flew LHR-CAI on MS and CAI-LHR on BD (same ticket) on work (the company has a contract with *A). Before leaving, they were dreading the thought of flying MS. They flew both segments in Y.

On the outbound leg, they got one of MS' new A330s, complete with WiFi on board. Catering was excellent, as was the rest of the hard and soft product. On the return leg, they were on BD and it was...well, not one nice thing to say about. Relatively poor catering, hard product etc.

I m sure MS has some older planes that aren't quite up to scratch, but I would dare suggest that their new Long Haul product, based on the trip reports and reviews I've read, would put it, at the very least, in the 2nd tier of *A carriers - ahead of the likes of 3rd tier carriers like UA, SK, CA, TP and the other 'must-avoids'. In fairness to BD, they sometimes price their premium cabin very competitively.

FedUp2

IF what LiveMint reports is correct (and I have no reason to doubt them) the Government and AI were right to reject the dual carrier demands of *A.

In fact, I feel they should go a few steps beyond and curtail landing rights of *A carriers within strict bilateral limits. Let the MidEast carriers (who are anathema to *A) pick up the additional demand.

If *A claims that alliance decisions are made solely on commercial criteria and governments do not play a role, then they obviously know diddly about doing business in Dilli.

Considering the fact that the Indian market is growing exponentially, and the vast majority of the nouveau flyers have no FF alliance membership or aspirations, I am sure AI can pick up a good chunk of this business if they simply improve their product, regardless of their alliance membership or lack therof.

Of course many members of this board (FT) will continue to shun them for the lack of FF miles (as Yaatri has pointed out so aptly), but that should not affect AI's fortunes too much.

mobilebucky

I doubt GoI will do something like that, retaliation never had a good outcome. Both German and US Govt can do the same too if that happened.

flyjet787

The current bilateral with Germany is under utilized by Indian carriers. Only AI has one daily flight to FRA while LH flies to quite a few cities in India. All the Govt needs to do is not extend the current bilateral rights. Eventually LH will completely use its side of the capacity and will want more.

SQ421

And what happens when the other countries retaliate and curtain the landing rights of Indian Carriers?

Tall claims for an Airline that would struggle to stay in business if it weren't for a repeated injection of funds from the GoI

yulred

What retaliation? As far as I can tell, having followed this issue for a while now, this is a battle between GoI and LH, not GoI and *A.

The big issue here is LH's decision to act as AI's mentor/cheerleader for *A since 2007. They did it to get more access to the Indian market, and it worked initially. However, AIs failure to move forward led to frustration on LH's side - the best example being that LH passenger side executive, who decided to state, not too many months ago, that LH would rather take 9W on. That was when the battle lines were drawn. LH got frustrated and said something that they knew full well would piss off the Indian government. Maybe he thought that, with AI on the precipice, the government would have no choice but to allow both in, to save AI.

It was a gamble. And it didn't work. Incidentally - and I think this is worth noting - not too many *A carrier CEOs have been shooting their mouth off over AI's induction. The only one I know of, was that LH fellow a couple of months back (can't remember his name, head of the passenger side I think). GoI doesn't seem too happy about *As insistence on pushing the two carrier/one alliance issue either - I think they've been making it clear, behind closed doors, that its only going to be one carrier in *A.

Either which way, if it turns into a battle, it will be between LH and GoI. SQ etc are probably not going to be affected. At the most, LH owned airlines like LX and OS may get dragged in, but even thats unlikely. UA and all have direct flights, so I doubt they're going to be affected. As noted elsewhere, only AI flies to Germany, so its not going to be any great loss for India if Germany retaliates. Not that I expect GoI to do anything more than refuse to give Germany more rights/allow the A380.

As for Government injections - thats a bit unfair, since, if I m not mistaken, AI is obligated to serve unprofitable routes, and most of the time, GoI officials (bureaucrats, politicians) treat AI like their own private service, hitching rides in premium cabins for free. The Govt also routinely commandeers widebodies for state visits. If they started paying up, or allowed AI to slash routes on the basis of unprofitability, AI might start performing better. Yes, service is hit-or-miss, but morale is low, and that has an impact on service standards. However, as noted elsewhere, the hardware is all in place, and its not half bad. Certainly better than the likes of UA (who's financial gymnastics are worthy of more debate than AI's government injections - after all, in AIs case, some of the injections include money that the government should be paying AI).

The problem with all the complaints coming out from the *A folk on FT is that AI, even in its woes, offers a better flight experience than most of the third-tier *A carriers. No, its not up to scratch with SQ, NZ etc, but its certainly better than your UAs and CAs and BDs. This is a case of poor management by AI AND GoI (who bear a significant chunk of the blame for AIs woes).

UA Fan

After seeing the youtube video of those clueless AI managers, I have very strong doubts. I actually experienced something very similar with an IC flight to Muscat. But they handled it better and provided food. However they very so stubborn about not telling the reason for the delay. Eventually we were put on the next flight and methinks it was that there were not enough pax for the first flight and they just wanted to combine two flight's pax/

SQ421

Yet you speak of GoI restricting *A flights to/from India to channel traffic elsewhere. Do you think this move will go unreciprocated by the other *A carriers.

Besides, how does letting Middle Eastern carriers pick up the traffic help AI in any way shape or form? They already carry the most international traffic out of and into India. Giving them more access to Tier 2/3 cities will only serve to hasten AI's demise (which in itself might not be a bad thing).

The GoI machinery isn't going to stop using AI as its private fiefdom, ever (unless AI were to be privatized, and unfortunately, that ship has sailed). That being the case, where is the incentive for anyone but the price sensitive casual traveller to pick AI over any other alternative? When I book a seat in C, I don't want to be at the mercy of some ministers daughter deciding to fly, and havnig to bumped for it, or risk missing my next connection because the AI flight's departure was held up to accomodated a late running minister.

Entry into *A may just have been the right carrot that AI needed to start getting its house in order. With that no longer being the case, its interesting to see how AI goes about with its overambitious plans for expansion (in both airframes and routes).

UA Fan

Star has released a report:

http://www.staralliance.com/en/press/starairindia-prp/

djjaguar64

People please pay special attention to this first statement:

'The member airlines of the Star Alliance network and Air India have jointly concluded that the integration of Air India into the global airline alliance will be suspended.

Babu

Pending moderator review.

Babu
Moderator, Airlines of India

Babu

Ladies and Gentlemen:

I am now reopening this thread, with the hope that we can continue a civilized discussion, exhibiting respect to our fellow posters. Thanks to all for your patience during the temporary closure.

Babu,
Moderator, Airlines of India

snic

From What went wrong with Air India's entry into Star Alliance?

As far as I can tell, this is the only news article that provides detailed reasons for *A's rejection of AI. How credible is this? Are these good reasons for *A to have rejected AI?