Star Alliance News
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Aegean Airlines accepted as future member
Star Alliance carriers start using new terminal 3 Cairo
TAP wins Airbus award for operational excellence
Aegean Airlines accepted as future member
The Chief Executive Board of Star Alliance has accepted the membership application of Aegean Airlines of Greece. Aegean Airlines is a welcome addition to the Star Alliance network. Its home market Greece is of strategic importance due to its geographic position in the Eastern Mediterranean, acting as the main south-eastern access point into the European Union.
Publicly listed Aegean Airlines began operations some 10 years ago and now operates a fleet of 31 aircraft covering a total of 47 domestic and international routes on 200 daily flights. Specifically 23 routes in Greece are covered, as well as a further 24 international routes. In 2008, Aegean became the largest Greek airline in terms of passenger numbers. The integration teams from Aegean Airlines and Star Alliance will begin the integration work shortly, which is estimated to take around 12 months.
Once this process is complete, the Star Alliance network will encompass a total of 26 carriers (current 21 and confirmed future members Aegean Airlines, Air India, Brussels Airlines, Continental Airlines and TAM) and three regional member carriers (Adria Airways, Blue1 and Croatia Airlines), offer a choice of more than 1,000 destinations in 176 countries being served by 21,000 daily flights.
Star Alliance carriers start using new terminal 3 Cairo
On April 27, EGYPTAIR started using its new Terminal 3 at Cairo Airport for a daily flight to JFK. Soon after, Austrian, bmi, Lufthansa and SWISS began international flights from the new facility followed by EGYPTAIR’s domestic traffic.
EGYPTAIR CEO Captain Tawfiq Assy stated at the opening in April that “the operation of the new building is a culmination of the achievements of the Egyptian civil aviation in recent years and reflects the real face of Egypt to the world.
EGYPTAIR’s international traffic and the other Star Alliance carriers – future member Aegean, plus Singapore and Turkish – will move to the terminal in June. Terminal 3 is exclusively used by all Star Alliance member carriers flying to Cairo. Four new lounges, created in the Star Alliance design and operated by EGYPTAIR as a single lounge will open later this year.
TAP wins Airbus award for operational excellence
TAP Portugal has been awarded the A320 Family Operational Excellence Award by Airbus in recognition of the exceptional use of its fleet of this type of aircraft.
The award was made by Airbus during the course of the “A320 Family Technical Symposium” which brought together A320 family aircraft operators in Paris from all over the world.
