The world’s largest airline alliance system, Star Alliance, will get rid of its regional membership scheme whose members are both Slovenia’s Adria Airways and Croatia Airlines. The group plans to present an updated corporate governance on the sidelines of the IATA annual general assembly in Kuala Lumpur next month and the step is expected to be formally announced there in addition to other changes. Croatia Airlines, Blue 1 (Finland) and Adria Airways are currently the only regional members. Their status is more restricted than that of a full member. None of the three airlines have been invited to join the main alliance system. However, the principle of unanimous voting for new members will no longer be applied, which could clear the way for smaller carriers such as Croatia, Blue 1 and Adria to become full members.Star formally invited Greek carrier Aegean to join the alliance as a full member today. The airline is expected to finally join the largest alliance in mid 2010. Aegean will bring nine new destinations to the alliance network plus a sizeable domestic network that Star Alliance so far has not had access to. Its principle competitor, Olympic, is not yet aligned with any of the other groups. Star officials point out that Lufthansa's proposal to add Aegean was quickly adopted. Turkish Airlines, geographically the nearest member, did not object to the plans either. Lufthansa was the sponsor of both Adria’s and Croatia Airlines’ membership in Star.
The airlines expected to join the alliance this year are Brussels Airlines, Continental Airlines and TAM Airlines. Next year, besides Aegean, Air India will also join the alliance. Adria Airways and Croatia Airlines become regional Star Alliance members in 2004. Their fate in the alliance will officially be announced next month.
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