Adria and Croatia full members in 26 days
Recently, Croatia Airlines celebrated 5 years since it joined Star Alliance, the world’s biggest network of airlines. Croatia Airlines joined as a regional member in 2004 together with Slovenian rival Adria Airways. Due to organisational changes, Star Alliance has decided to discontinue its regional membership club and will welcome Croatia Airlines and Adria as full members on January 1, 2010. The major supporter of Croatia Airlines and its bid to join Star Alliance has been Germany’s Lufthansa, one of the alliance’s founders. Similarly, Lufthansa has supported Adria in its Star Alliance bid.With Croatia Airlines and Adria included, Star Alliance has a total of 25 members. This will grow to 26 by next week as Brussels Airlines becomes the alliance’s newest members. Together, this group of airlines serve 1.071 airports with 19.534 daily flights. Some have accused Star Alliance for using smaller airlines in order to feed local and regional passengers to bigger players within the alliance.
What is the difference between a full membre and a regional member?
ReplyDeleteCongratulations to the two airlines, though I suppose by default!
ReplyDeleteLH were clever enough to exploit these two airlines into the fold early on, and thus avoid competition on the routes, and avoid needing to do much of the coalface work in the region. In turn, it has helped these two airlines get on their feet and be recognised in the wider community.
My big question still remains as to whether both will remain in this same alliance in the future - with almost identical overlapping networks and O&D markets, similar-sized fleets, and few synergies between the two airlines it often appears they are competing for the same passengers.
But which airline would go, and which alliance to move into? Oneworld doesn't really cover the region terribly well (Malev is struggling on many fronts) and frankly doesn't seem too interested, and Skyteam is being pursued by JAT at present...
@ Anonymous
Regional members had to be sponsored/adopted by a full member and had no voting rights.