Star Alliance
The Star Alliance ( english star - star alliance - Alliance ) is an airline alliance, founded in 1997, currently 26 airlines (as of March 31, 2014). A member of the Star Alliance will be held every day more than 21,900 flights. It will be served in 194 countries, 1,329 goals. All members have a combined fleet strength of 4,701 aircraft and carries about 727.42 million passengers. In order for the Star Alliance is the largest airline alliance in the world.
History
The Star Alliance network was established on 14 May 1997 as the world's first airline alliance of the five airlines Air Canada, United Airlines, Lufthansa, SAS Scandinavian Airlines and Thai Airways. The main objective of this alliance are efficiency gains that were sought in the following areas:
- Common and compatible offers for frequent flyers
- Common lounges and later terminals at airports (such as the Terminal 2 of Munich Airport, or check-in 3 " Austrian Star Alliance Terminal " at Vienna International Airport ).
- Coordinated scheduled flights with the establishment of a worldwide network
- Single tickets for different airlines of the Star Alliance
- Harmonizing quality standards
- Common fleets and spare part orders
- Common fleet leasing
- Common route rights and slots
At the founding ceremony were at the airport apron at Frankfurt / Main, a Boeing 747-400 Thai Airways, a Boeing 777-200 of United Airlines, a Boeing 767-300 from SAS and one Airbus A340-300 Air Canada and the German Lufthansa similar to the star Alliance logo formed a five-pointed star.
In addition to the inclusion of several new members of the regional concept was developed and presented to develop smaller markets through regional airlines such as the Finnish Blue1, 2004.
In April 2011, the Lufthansa Cargo CEO Karl -Ulrich Garnadt announced that it intends to further develop the synergies of the alliance in the freight sector. Currently there is only a co-operation with Austrian Airlines. A similar project by Lufthansa and other airlines called WOW was launched in 2000, but never achieved the hoped-for synergies.
Members
Current members
Candidate
As of February 2014, only the accession of Avianca Brazil, a subsidiary of Avianca, which is already a member of Star Alliance, announced for 2014.
Air India, whose accession was due not fulfilled minimum requirements aborted first leads since December 13, 2013 re- negotiations.
Former members
The following airlines were members of the alliance and have them leave for various reasons.