{"id":2101,"date":"2014-07-12T11:42:38","date_gmt":"2014-07-12T06:12:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.prasadgupte.com\/blog\/?p=2101"},"modified":"2014-07-30T15:11:48","modified_gmt":"2014-07-30T09:41:48","slug":"air-india-star-alliance-member","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.prasadgupte.com\/blog\/air-india-star-alliance-member\/","title":{"rendered":"1st impression of Air India @ Star Alliance"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure style=\"width: 142px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/prasadgupte.files.wordpress.com\/2014\/07\/wpid-wp-1406648151297.jpeg\" alt=\"Delighted to see this!\" width=\"142\" height=\"142\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Delighted to see this!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">I was scheduled to fly Air India just 1 day before its\u00a0Star Alliance (*A) membership went in to effect, thus depriving us of our *G privileges. Nonetheless, most of us are delighted about AIs entry to *A which allows seamless transfer of miles, lounge access, priority boarding, to name a few.<\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 191px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/prasadgupte.files.wordpress.com\/2014\/07\/wpid-img_20140730_114851.jpg\" alt=\"Lunch: sans the typical bakery roll\" width=\"191\" height=\"191\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lunch: sans the typical bakery roll<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">AI seems to have taken their entry seriously &#8211; knowing that memberships have been revoked in the past. Most of our 4-leg journey was\u00a0as scheduled. But there&#8217;s still a long way to go. The food menu needs to be more internationalized and most importantly,\u00a0legacy\u00a0crew needs a mindset change. The crew on the international sector seemed more geared up than their domestic counterparts. <!--more-->While we&#8217;re expecting great service from the staff, its worth noting that not all of AI&#8217;s employee troubles have been resolved and this whole initiative could pack up without the staff&#8217;s cooperation.<\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 2059px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/prasadgupte.files.wordpress.com\/2014\/07\/wpid-wp-1406648151296.jpeg\" alt=\"Well-compiled Morning breakfast, but no hot meal!\" width=\"2059\" height=\"1792\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Well-compiled Morning breakfast, but no hot meal!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">AI is losing several crores per day due to its high OpEx. For instance, its staff per aircraft ratio is 2.5 times that of their European friends\u00a0(ref. *A website). While AI could substantially benefit from the the alliance&#8217;s negotiated fuel &amp; catering rates, there could be additional costs incurred in matching the group&#8217;s service levels &#8211; particularly in training.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Leaving all the concerns apart, its really a proud moment for every Indian to see their national airline join the leading airline alliance. It is also great to see new sectors added every quarter &#8211; cities in UK, Australia, Italy &amp; now resuming Moscow. I wish them good luck in restoring\u00a0the Maharajah&#8217;s pride!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I was scheduled to fly Air India just 1 day before its\u00a0Star Alliance (*A) membership went in to effect, thus depriving us of our *G privileges. Nonetheless, most of us are delighted about AIs entry to *A which allows seamless transfer of miles, lounge access, priority boarding, to name a few. AI seems to have &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.prasadgupte.com\/blog\/air-india-star-alliance-member\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">1st impression of Air India @ Star Alliance<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[493,838,911,910],"class_list":["post-2101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-travel","tag-air-india","tag-airline","tag-frequent-flyer","tag-star-alliance"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prasadgupte.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prasadgupte.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prasadgupte.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prasadgupte.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prasadgupte.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.prasadgupte.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2101\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prasadgupte.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prasadgupte.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prasadgupte.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}