Air India, Star Alliance discuss integration

The top management of Air India and the Star Alliance held discussions here today as the national carrier presented its progress report on integrating its domestic and international network, including the work on evolving a common flight code.

Air India CMD Arvind Jadhav held talks with a six-member Star Alliance delegation here and briefed them about the work being done on integrating the two erstwhile carriers, Air India and Indian Airlines, their fleet and network strength and of integrating their IT systems, official sources said.

One of the biggest obstacles for Air India in becoming a part of Star Alliance is the absence of same flight-code, which is IC for Indian Airlines and AI for Air India.

A common IT system, on which a US company was working, is likely to be finalised soon, the sources said, adding, eventual integration would take another six months.

Efforts were being made to align the processes and systems of the two erstwhile airlines and bring them on par with the Star Alliance standards, the sources said.

The Star Alliance is a global alliance of over two dozen airlines, which codeshare flights, provide seamless transfers to passengers within their network and cooperate among each other on engineering, IT, infrastructural and other issues.

Air India was in the process of integrating the activities that cover product delivery, passenger handling and sales and marketing functions. The activities include reservations and ticketing, pre and post flight processes and frequent flyer programme  among others.