Star Alliance Initiates Its First Global Mtgs. Program
<B>Star Alliance Initiates Its First Global Mtgs. Program</B>
By Chris Davis
Three years after its birth, the Star Alliance of 11 international airlines including United and Lufthansa has created its first global meetings program.
The Star Alliance Convention Plus is restricted to meetings of more than 300 attendees involving departure points in at least three countries and two continents. The program, which began June 5, will allow planners to book attendees on any Star carrier by contacting the destination country's airline.
Though a few of the Star airlines have immunity from federal antitrust regulations, including United with Lufthansa, Air Canada and Scandinavian Airlines Systems, the majority do not, so pricing for the meeting cannot be standardized across carriers. That holds true even on those carriers with antitrust, said Joann Bedrosian Ryan, manager of meetings, groups and incentives for United.
"We wanted to create a product that truly spans the Star Alliance, given that this is the first Star Alliance meeting product ever released," Bedrosian Ryan said. "We didn't want to go down the route of permitting negotiated pricing across those carriers with antitrust, as that would create a subproduct. This way, everybody has a stake in it."
The product is also separate from United's area pricing program--called zone fares by most other airlines--which allows meeting and group attendees standard, pre-set fares based on the geographic areas of arrival and departure points.
As such, meeting planners who book attendees under the terms of the program will have the ability to book any Star carrier through a single contact but under the auspices of each airline's standard meeting and group discount.
"We've simplified considerably the entire convention process," Bedrosian Ryan said. "Travel managers will be very pleased with how easy it will be to arrange convention travel."
While its restrictions seem to make Convention Plus particularly attractive to association meeting planners, Bedrosian Ryan pointed out that large corporations will see a benefit due to the ever-increasing number of corporate international operations and attendees.
"All Star Alliance carriers have signed into the deal, except for communal pricing, so the discounts may be different but the tour code the same, which is a major advantage," she said.
Convention Plus is similar to a program created in 1998 by the former Atlantic Excellence alliance (Meetings Today, July 20, 1998), but that fell apart last year as the alliance did. A former member of that program, Austrian Airlines, now is part of Convention Plus.
In addition to United, Lufthansa, SAS, Air Canada and Austrian, the Star Alliance is comprised of Air New Zealand, All Nippon Airways, Singapore Airlines, Thai Airways and Varig Brazilian. Mexicana and British Midland are slated to join the alliance later this year.