Air China and Shanghai Airlines in Star Alliances
 

When I was in Shanghai (PVG) last week, I see Air China planes with Star Alliances stickers on them. The Star Alliance sign is next to Air China and Shanghai Airlines signs through the airport. When is CA and FM officially in the alliance?

Closer and closer. They are both includable in the *A RTWs as of tomorrow, 2 Dec.

cheers,

Henry

they should be full official members on december 12th

NZ's magazine Kia Ora says they are full members from 1 December. No promo though :td:

Called UA, trying to book an award trip on Air China to no avail. CSR did not know Air China is member of *A.
Still waiting for the official announcement.

Too bad the Alliance itself thinks otherwise. At least there's nothing on staralliance.com about them yet.

Both FM and CA will become offical members on Dec. 12 at which time a welcome ceremony will be held in Beijing.

NZ inflight magazine didn't say Dec. 1. It only has a generic *A ad which already appeared in OZ timetable file a month ago. So there is still chance of promos. It would be interesting to see how well FM and CA cope with *A intergration. There are problems with China Southern entering SkyTeam all over the place.

it wouldn't make sense to have December 1st as the entering date! 1.12 equals 1+1+2=4 which means phonetically death in the Chinese language :)

12.12 equals 1+2+1+2=6 = lucky number :)

similar to the entering date of CZ into Skyteam: 15.11 equals 1+5+1+1=6+2=8 = lucky number :)))

does it make sense now?

Btw my miles posted corrected from CZ toward AF Flying Blue. BUT they have decreased the minimum miles and the earning bonus dramatically.. So for a route under 500 Miles I was suppose to get 750 (minimum miles) * 300% for using F with CZ equals 2250 Miles each time I'm flying them. Now I'm ending up with 500 (minimum miles) * 150% equals 750 miles! That's the main reasons why I'm going to stop to fly CZ whenever I can and instead of fly CA/FM as often as possible since the mileage earning scheme is just simply a joke before and after entering Skyteam.

Just hope CA/FM wouldn't change their earning scheme AFTER joining *A

I just read that CA has started flights going to Pongyang in North Korea... I can't wait to read a trip report from someone doing a MR there on a RTW ticket... :p

Then it makes more sense if CA and FM joined on 14th Dec as 1+2+1+4=8.
Chinese loves number 8! :cool:
One chinese paid over 2.3 millions CNY for telephone number "88888888". (Aug 2003)

Not yet up on RTW calculator (though FNJ is accepted). Do you have dates/schedule?

Edited to add - I see the flights when searching in January (picked 21 Jan at random) so perhaps it is seasonal flight or only loaded for a short period? In the RTW mileage calculator tool it stops by end of March.

You are right. I don't know if Boeing changed B7E7 to 787 just to land more Chinese orders. Also Beijing Olympics opening ceremony will start from 8:08 pm on 08/08/08. I would expect more promotion close to that date.

Starting January 2nd, 3 times weekly on Monday Wednesday and Friday... do you really want to go? :)

http://english.gov.cn/2007-11/18/content_808646.htm

not quite correct :) Even if the end sum is a 8, the original numbers do include a "4", so 14.12. can't be done due to that fact!

There are more details/discussions on Air China's new service to Pyongyang at these threads:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=754047

http://en.feeyo.com/posts/0/topic-2-363.html