The Star Alliance will soon add a new member to its ranks. For the first time, this is not an airline.
On May 14, 1997, nearly 25 years ago, the Star Alliance was founded. The five founding members were Air Canada, Lufthansa, Scandinavian Airlines, Thai Airways and United Airlines. After 25 years, the alliance includes 26 airlines as well as two connected partners, Juneyao Airlines and Thai Smile, which, however, do not belong to the alliance. All members are airlines. This tradition can now be broken, how Aerotelegraph mentioned.
Create a multimedia partnership model
With 26 airlines and two connected partners, Star Alliance is the largest of its kind. With members such as Lufthansa, Swiss, Austrian Airlines, Air China, All Nippon Airways and Singapore Airlines, travelers can access more than 1,300 airports in the global route network. All airlines belong to the Star Alliance, but Star Alliance plans to break with this tradition. According to Allianz President Jeffrey Goh, Allianz wants to create a multimodal partnership model. Multimodal means as far as it is a combination of different modes of transportation in the journey. Swiss introduced this multimodal partnership model a few days ago with the train line between Zurich Airport and Munich Central Station. This is also a multimodal partnership model, here between Switzerland and the Swiss Federal Railways.
At this time, it is still unclear which company will join the Star Alliance. When asked by colleagues from Aerotelegraph if it was a train company, Star Alliance president Jeffrey Goh replied that colleagues were not far from that assumption. What is certain is that it will be a European company. Now, however, the big guessing begins – who will be the new Star Alliance member?
Conclusion on the new (yet unknown) member of the Star Alliance
I think we agree that the new member will be a big railroad company. Personally, I would guess either Deutsche Bahn, Swiss Federal Railways or even ÖBB. I hold back from France’s SNCF because Air France, for example, is not a member of the Star Alliance. What do you think? When will Star Alliance announce its new member and who will it be? I think the Star Alliance will announce the new member tomorrow, May 14, on the 25th anniversary of the alliance.
