Amongst the stars

Adria and Croatia full members in 26 days

Recently, Croatia Airlines celebrated 5 years since it joined Star Alliance, the world’s biggest network of airlines. Croatia Airlines joined as a regional member in 2004 together with Slovenian rival Adria Airways. Due to organisational changes, Star Alliance has decided to discontinue its regional membership club and will welcome Croatia Airlines and Adria as full members on January 1, 2010. The major supporter of Croatia Airlines and its bid to join Star Alliance has been Germany’s Lufthansa, one of the alliance’s founders. Similarly, Lufthansa has supported Adria in its Star Alliance bid.

With Croatia Airlines and Adria included, Star Alliance has a total of 25 members. This will grow to 26 by next week as Brussels Airlines becomes the alliance’s newest members. Together, this group of airlines serve 1.071 airports with 19.534 daily flights. Some have accused Star Alliance for using smaller airlines in order to feed local and regional passengers to bigger players within the alliance.