Yesterday was indeed a sad day for India and Indian Commercial Aviation. As Flying with Fish has been predicting on his blog for a few days and finally confirmed yesterday, Air India has been booted from Star Alliance before they could even formally join. The dropping of Air India was done three and a half years after Air India was invited and was still unable to fulfill the basic requirements required by Star Alliance to be a member of the worlds largest Airline Alliance. Fish does a great job documenting …

Shenzhen Airlines, a primarily domestic Chinese Airline is set to join Star Alliance. The announcement came today morning on Star Alliance’s Facebook page. They expect Shenzhen to fully join the alliance by late 2012.
Recently, there has been a race between airlines to expand partners in China. China Eastern and Southern were taken up by Skyteam; OneWorld is actively looking for partners. And now, this announcement by Star Alliance. I have never flown Shenzhen but they don’t seem to have a good reputation as a carrier. While, I don’t trust Skytrax …

As Air India progresses on its ‘final approach’ to become a member of the Star Alliance, it brings to an end (if they do actually make this July-end deadline) of the longest any airline has ever taken to join an Alliance. This long drawn out path to Allianceship, if I may, has further tarnished Air India’s already not-so-great image. I personally have mixed feelings about Air India. In full disclosure, I have only flown Air India on an international trip on one round trip between the US and India AND …

Air India’s (AI) official mascot is ‘Maharaja’ which translates to the great king/prince in English. Probably that is why Star Alliance has treated AI in a princely fashion. AI has been trying to join Star Alliance since 2007. Since then, the joining deadlines have been postponed time and again to accommodate the sluggish ‘king’. Finally, tired of the ‘lazy’ king, Star has announced a final deadline of 31July 2011.
On its website, Air India recently announced that they have met the Minimum Joining Requirements (MJR) for joining the alliance. This was …

Earlier this month, United (UA) changed the boarding process on its aircrafts. The old system was so easy! First the red carpet boarding for Global Services/1K followed by Premier Executive and Star Alliance Gold members. The rest of the passengers boarded by zones: Zone 1 catered to all remaining elites; zone 2, 3 and 4 were for passengers in window, middle and aisle seats respectively.
I have yet to see a consistent order with the new boarding process. However, the general order is as follows:

Military (supposedly only those in uniform; but …

Jet Airways is one of the largest airlines in India with hubs at Mumbai (BOM), Delhi (DEL), Chennai (MAA) and Brussels (BRU) airports. Jet Airways operates an extensive domestic and regional network within the Indian subcontinent as well as services to Europe, the Middle East, Southeast Asia and North America. They also have an extensive partner network. You might recollect that unroadwarrior blogged a few days ago about Jet Airways forming a new partnership with US Airways. They already have strong ties with Star Alliance airline carriers like United and …

Continental (CO) now has a published status match via a challenge. According to the policy, they will match your Elite status in any other airline (most probably not in Star Alliance) to an equivalent status on CO for 90 days. In order to maintain the status after the status match window, you need to satisfy the following challenge:

Silver

Fly 10,000 Elite Qualifying Miles or 15 Elite Qualifying Segments to retain Silver Elite status

Gold

Fly 17,500 Elite Qualifying Miles or 22 Elite Qualifying Segments to retain Gold Elite status

Platinum

Fly 35,000 Elite Qualifying Miles …

Editors Note: This is the first blog post by UnRoadWarrior’s first co-blogger – The Nomad. I would like to welcome him to the blog. Do leave a comment and make him feel welcome.
Major changes are coming to United’s (and of course the merged Continental’s) Mileage Plus Award Charts from June 15, 2011. Most sectors see a 5k to 10K increase in miles needed for round trip awards apart from domestic awards. From the point of view of economy passengers, I would say this is not really a good change. Most …

Jet Airways is one of the best airlines in India. It has a large international presence and has superb service. So far it has resisted joining an alliance. It’s two main competitors in India have both joined an Alliance. Kingfisher joined OneWorld and Air India has been working on completing its joining Star Alliance. The fact that it has been ‘working’ on it for a couple of years is another story for another post.
Jet Airways announced yesterday that it has formed a partnership with US Airways. This is a mileage …

Continental and United’s merger is progressing along. Till they get the license to operate as one airline, they will continue to operate as two separate airlines. They have started taking steps to merge. Here are some:
Livery update:
Both Continental (more so) and United have started painting their planes with the new United livery. Attached is a picture I took of a United 777 painted with the new livery, parked at a gate at Washington Dulled (IAD) airport.
Code sharing:
The airlines now have 100% code sharing of all flights. As Star Alliance partners, …