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Interview
careful that what you are buying is actually a better deal.”
When Qatar Airways joined Oneworld last autumn, the airline’s CEO Akbar Al Baker told a press conference that Skyteam and Star Alliance would soon be “knocking on the doors” of the other two big Gulf carriers. Is Al Baker right, I ask Schwab. The answer is an unequivocal “no”. He asks: “What would any one of those other two carriers bring to our alliance that we don’t already have? No new cities; we fly to every one of the Gulf states – I think our count is 32 cities that we fly to there. We do 2,500 weekly flights, so we have great access in and out of the Middle East.” Star does, however, have Turkish Airlines, which has hub ambitions to rival the three Gulf giants. “Turkish Airlines has a very large market, which we are very interested in, and it’s a very fast-growing airline,” says Schwab. So has Star in fact reached saturation point? “We have a few geographical gaps that we’re focusing on,” he says, but adds: “Sixteen years into a mature alliance, there are not that many gaps left for us to fill.”
LOOKING EAST
One gap that now looks set to be filled is India. As one of the world’s fastest growing aviation markets, this was a key target for Star, and in December last year the alliance board voted unanimously to restart Air India’s membership bid. Star has also made a move to maintain a presence in Brazil when TAM leaves the alliance to join Oneworld in March this year, by voting to extend membership to Avianca’s partner, Avianca Brazil.
So despite the questions raised by some over the big three alliances’ future, Schwab says they’re not going away anytime soon. He says from a traveller viewpoint, frequent flyers would “much prefer to be able to earn and use their miles all around the world – I don’t see any change in their desire to tap into a global network”. He believes the three alliances
have strong future. “Over 60 per cent of worldwide capacity is distributed among the three alliances. The biggest competition is between the alliances, and it’s good, healthy, competition. You pick any two cities in the world that you want to fly between and you have literally hundreds of options – but if you want a worldwide proposition, its the alliances that are going to be able to offer it to you.”
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