Press Release 2002

Star Alliance CEO: Airline alliances "an absolute essential" 
 
“Airline alliances are no longer just nice to have. With their stabilizing effect in the present times of uncertainty and economic climate they are an absolute essential,” said Jaan Albrecht, CEO of Star Alliance, in a speech at The Aviation Club of the UK in London today. He also pointed out that because of functioning airline alliances the global business community still has access to a global network of air services of real substance after September 11, 2001 and the current economic downturn.

According to the Chief Executive, Star Alliance member airlines at present offer a route network of comparable size to pre-September 11 times. “If our members had continued to operate as separate airlines, the loss of feeder traffic would have forced them to scale back their networks in a much more drastic way. Global airline alliances offer a depth of market penetration that has allowed the participating airlines to reduce frequencies and destinations to a much lesser degree than otherwise would have been necessary,” Jaan Albrecht said.  

In his speech, Jaan Albrecht described the U.K. as one of the most challenging air transport markets and one in which Star Alliance is determined to compete successfully. Concerning facilities for the alliance at London Heathrow, he said that Star Alliance – in line with maintaining  fair competition - wants to ensure that it benefits from facilities of an equal quality with oneworld in the new Terminal 5. He also welcomed the decision by the U.S. Department of Transportation to extend the antitrust immunity for Star Alliance partners United and bmi until the end of this year while the U.S. and the U.K. continue their efforts to work out an “open skies” agreement.

“This is good news and I sincerely hope that this deal will materialize,” the Star Alliance Chief Executive said.

A number of low-cost carriers have emerged in Europe during the last few years. Excluding the U.K., their combined market share in Europe is currently only 3.6 per cent, and Jaan Albrecht predicted that network carriers are going to stay in great demand:

“Even if the low-cost carriers were to reach a market share of 20 per cent, this would still leave 80 per cent of the work to be done to the network carriers which are indispensable for providing access to world markets,” he said.

Star Alliance was established five years ago as the first truly global airline alliance. It has achieved a level of maturity that allows it to concentrate on the deeper integration of the member airlines, including the realization of cost savings. Star Alliance recently signed an agreement with Rockwell Collins, a global leader in aviation electronics, which is aimed at standardizing and simplifying the member airlines’ fleets in order to reduce capital requirement and maintenance costs.

Member carriers are also looking at creating a common technology platform covering, for example, reservations, seat inventory and departure control systems. This would represent the next generation of airline IT technology.

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