German airline Lufthansa wants the Air India-Indian Airlines combine to speed up the merger and its entry into Star Alliance, a delay that is directly benefiting the Gulf carriers.
The lead airline for the alliance, Lufthansa, has said that while getting AI into Star is its “top priority”, a big country like India has room for more than one partner and that “Jet is also an option”.
Lufthansa’s board member Karl Ulrich Garnadt said this last week and added although the German airline understands that PSUs globally take longer than a private company for implementing big ticket decisions, “the wait can’t be indefinite”.
“We are waiting for the merger to come through so that we can code share with the massive domestic network of IA. We had hoped for better connectivity within India on IA through Delhi and Mumbai but a lot more needs to be done,” he said.
AI-IA combine chief Arvind Jadhav told TOI that the airline has time up to December 2010 to join Star and sounded confident of making it by then. “We should have the single code for AI and IA flights by October,” he said. A single code for AI and IC (code for IA flights) is a necessity for the carrier to join Star but this process has been delayed by over a year now.
Jet is learnt to have been trying to pip AI to the post in becoming the first Indian carrier to join a major alliance as this entails major benefits in terms of assured traffic. “India is one of the most important long haul markets for us and second only to US in terms of number of daily flights. Merger of IA- AI is a necessity for India to become a major player in global aviation,” the board member said.
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