LOT centre stage at Star Alliance meeting

Star Alliance enhancements and new memberships are just a few of the fresh changes to come out of Star Alliance’s mid-year meeting.

The Chief Executive Board (CEB) Meeting was hosted by member carrier LOT Polish Airlines, during which the member carrier ceo’s endorsed enhancements to further improve the network travel experience offered to customers, as well as giving the go-ahead for the inclusion of a new member in Brazil.

As hosting carrier, LOT outlined its new strategy – a new LOT in a new Europe – under which it plans to double in size over the next five years.

In addition to three new connections to Asia – Tokyo, Seoul and Bangkok – it plans to introduce more than a dozen new European routes.

LOT made it clear it was in the midst of dynamic growth, with the airline saying it was competing for leadership in the region and aimed to become the largest network carrier in New Europe.

“As a mature Alliance with a comprehensive network and good, close relationships between our member airlines we are excellently placed to offer continuous enhancements in various ways that together improve the Alliance travel experience,” Star Alliance’s ceo Mark Schwab said.

Avianca in Brazil will be added to the network as of July 22 this year, allowing Star Alliance once again to offer its customers domestic flights in Latin America’s largest and most important market.

“We are delighted that we can include Avianca in Brazil as of next month, which, together with various new hub-to-hub services announced by individual members, signifies that we will boost network connectivity this year,” Schwab added.

2015 has already seen a steady stream of route additions, and there are plans to add more new routes by the end of the year. These include further increasing choice at the Alliance’s Houston hub, with new long-haul flights by Air New Zealand, ANA and EVA Air from Auckland, Tokyo and Taipei.

Air China has launched a new flight between Beijing and Montreal while Air Canada will start flying from Toronto to Delhi in December. A new Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt to Panama will establish an important link between a major hub in Europa and Latin America from late November.

Complementing the network expansions, member carriers are deepening their bilateral cooperation by signing code-share agreements. Recent examples include Air India and Air New Zealand, Air India and Avianca, Copa and TAP and EVA Air and Turkish Airlines.

Dialogue with airports was also highlighted as essential in realising ground service improvements.

“We would ask airports around the world to engage with us at a very early stage, as they redevelop terminals or build completely new infrastructures. As the experience at Heathrow shows, this can bring advantages for all,” Schwab said.

Projects are already under way at Sao Paulo – Guarulhos Airport as well as at Tokyo’s Narita Airport, where in both cases the check-in halls face space constraints which cannot be resolved by expanding the current infrastructure.

Another service which is currently being rolled out across the network is Gold Track Security – a dedicated security lane for First and Business Class passengers as well as Star Alliance Gold Card holders.

This Alliance product is currently available at over 25 major airports and will be progressively stretched out to the majority of Star Alliance hubs over the course of the year.

The ceo’s also reviewed the successful implementation of several new IT systems. An IT hub infrastructure forms the backbone for the majority of the systems required to deliver the Alliance customer promise.

This has gradually been extended to handle different forms of business logic, such as through check-in services that allow passengers to receive their boarding passes for their entire trip from the first point of check-in.

Wrapping things up, the ceo’s also reiterated that while adding new members to the Alliance is no longer the priority it was some years ago, the Alliance business model continues to offer many opportunities for creating additional value for their individual companies.

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