It has not been long since the news of American Airlines and Air Asia X cutting back their flights to India has been in the news. Bad news is, there is more!

A few days after Air Asia X announced their exit from Mumbai and Delhi airports, the assurance that no other Air Asia group flights would be withdrawn was broken. Thai Air Asia decided to cancel its 4 times weekly A320 service on Bangkok – Delhi from from 24th March 2012, with the last flight operating from Bangkok to Delhi on 23rd March 2012.

Close on the heels, Austrian Airlines, a part of the Lufthansa Group, has decided to pull out of its 5 times a week Mumbai – Vienna service, with the last flight taking off from Mumbai on 25th March 2012. The Boeing 767-300 on this service goes on to service the middle-east market. My assumption is, if you are booked on this service later in the year, you’d be accomodated on Swiss, Lufthansa or another Lufthansa group carrier.

Air France has also trimmed its services to Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore Airports, reducing them to 6 times a week from the existing daily service.

Related Posts:

• American Airlines cancels its only India service, what is next?
• Air Asia X withdraws from India and Europe

Back in July 2011, Star Alliance put a lid on Air India’s ambitions to join their little coterie, by stating that the majority of the member airlines were against AI joining on the back of security concerns. Business seems to have taken over that logic now, and the media is reporting that Star Alliance and Air India are now back in talks again. This opening is clearly a nice choice of words since AI’s membership was ‘suspended’ and not completely withdrawn at that instance.

Reportedly, AI and *A met up in December 2011, and members are ‘reconsidering their stand‘ on AI. This is closely to be read with the fact that a new CEO is taking over *A (Mark Schwab), and a new bureaucrat is in the topshot seat at AI (Rohit Nandan). That Star Alliance has been desperate to get into India is no news, and that they are also wooing Jet Airways is also old news. But in the ways the Indian bureacracy works, the folks must have come to realise that unless Air India gets on board, no one else is going to get a ticket to ride their bus. The government also wants to stall Jet Airways to get into Star Alliance, and has been tomtomming the one airline in one alliance theory where Jet automatically gets relegated to SkyTeam.

This desperation could also stem from the fact that Air India/Star Alliance were almost ready to go live, and have now been beaten to the tape by Kingfisher Airlines/oneworld, in the next 40 days. Heck, Air India even put the *A logo on the new Boeing 787s they were going to buy. And yes, Lufthansa wants to fly their A380s in India and take away a good chunk of traffic to the Americas too.

Aargh, make up your minds quick people. You are all affecting my choice of airlines and allliances in the times to come.

P.S.: I hope the MegaDo organisers are reading. They might have to camp in India with Star Alliance MegaDo 5 or 6

Related Posts:

• Will AI join *A and should it join?
• AI misses its flight to the *A
• SkyTeam courting AI after being dumpted by *A
• Kingfisher all set to join oneworld in February 2012
• Heads roll at AI

This was more a chance discovery but I thought it was in the best interest of everyone to know. American Express and Delta have come up with a wonderful offer, although targetted, which provides a very easy way to get Delta status all the way upto Feb 2013 with one round trip flight till Jan 2012.

All you have to do, is to register an eligible American Express Card on this website, pop-in your non-status Delta Skymiles number, book a round-trip on Delta which is not in the fare classes R/O/N/E, and you’ll be eligibile for a $200 Gift Card from Amex. Also, if you have elite status on another carrier, which was at least valid till December 2012, you’ll be matched for 1-year to comparable Delta Medallion Status. Now, this looks like a lucrative way and a VERY EASY way to switch to Delta if you plan to do so.

American Express clearly states that corporate and prepaid cards are not valid for this promotion, and Delta states that anyone who has been status matched before won’t be status matched again! So, watch out for the T&C before you register. Since it is a ‘targetted promo’ from the looks of it, not everyone may be successful in getting through.