Is there some law about transiting DXB?

Yes, the lack of FF miles earning is interesting; most of the carriers compete only on price and have no programs at all.

Ha! No, this was in reply to the 5-year component of OP's post. The 5/20 rule stipulates that a carrier cannot fly abroad until that carrier has operated in the Indian market for 5 years. That's going away now.

Vistara: Tata-SIA joint venture to start operations in October
 

This fall, Tata and Singapore Airline's JV - Vistara - is expected to launch.

The new full-service airline will be New Delhi-based and will be leasing SQ's A320 aircraft.

Vistara plans to operate 87 weekly flights. "The airline is likely to have 14 flights a week connecting Delhi to Mumbai, Bangalore, Ahmedabad and Hyderabad. Apart from covering the big cities, there are going to be seven flights a week to Srinagar, Patna and Chandigarh."

http://qz.com/247470/singapore-airli...#/h/94377,2,3/

No *A membership I guess, though there'd possibly be a SQ codeshare.

can't wait for this to start....ai gets 90% of my business as i'm forced to give about 10% to jet....but now i'll be happy to get rid of jet altogether....

Slightly off-topic, but is there a current situation where there are 2 airlines from the same country within the same Alliance (like UA and US used to co-exist)?

SQ already set up Silkair and Scoot without any *A affiliation. I doubt this will be any different.

There is: China, used to have Shanghai Airlines (now integrated into MU) and Air China in Star Alliance, and still has China Airlines (TPE), China Eastern (PVG, SHA, NKG etc.), China Southern (CAN etc.) and Xiamen Airlines (XMN, HGH..) all in Skyteam.

Really eager to know if the 20-5 rule will be relaxed now. I am really looking forward to flying international with them.

Thanks a ton. Didn't know much about Xiamen and China Eastern.

*A said even at the AI joining ceremony last month that *A has room for a second Indian airline. The same would probably happen in Brazil in the near future as well.

China at the moment has both CA and ZH as *A members.

I read somewhere that they will lobby really hard with the govt to relax the 20-5 rule. It would be really interesting to know what routes they would fly internationally.

Welcome news. We get to fly a class and well managed airline in India. Been a while since I flew one......

The name Vistara conjures up images of a land based resort too ! :)

Looking forward to this. Shame they are primarily focused on DEL. Will have to try them out. Any ideas if they will be launching an FF program.

No way SQ and Tata can mess this one up. Just too much pride to be lost!