As a result of the new Star airline alliance, Scandinavian Airlines System by next year will be able to offer Internet booking and expand electronic ticketing beyond Scandinavia, president and CEO Jan Stenberg told delegates to the 25th Annual International Business Travel Association Congress in Malmo, Sweden, late last week.
Stenberg said the alliance--including SAS, Air Canada, Lufthansa, Thai Airways, United and, by October, Varig--"will be a major player in the future, but other mega constellations will follow, and in the long term this will change the business conditions for the whole travel industry."
Other airlines being considered for the alliance are Air New Zealand, Ansett and Singapore Airlines.
While Stenberg regards the AA-BA alliance as inevitable, he predicted the new Labour government in the United Kingdom and regulatory authorities in the European Union will keep it from being approved by the end of this year (see story, Page 3).
He said corporate customers stand to get better deals from the Star alliance than individual alliance partners, but that it would require them to choose between alliances and lock up additional market share in "golden handcuffs."
Changes in the market mean that the International Air Transport Association should no longer be involved with the commercial aspects of the business, Stenberg said. A logical result of global airline entities, he said, is a possible end to the current practice of universal interlining. "This means that part of the flexibility with free interlining between airlines will disappear and be replaced by deeper customer relations with one or other of the mega alliances," he said.
Stenberg said the alliance will focus on improving customer complaint response; each member will provide points of contact for complaints about service from the alliance. "The beauty of a commercial contractual relationship rather than a merger," he said, "is that each has a say and a share in the profits on each route regardless of who gets the customer."
Another airline president, Finnair's Antti Potila, told delegates that "competition between air alliances is the future."
"When the sun comes up," he quipped, "no Star can be seen.