Qazar From Canada, joined May 2006, 315 posts, RR: 0 Posted (10 months 1 week 4 days 5 hours ago) and read 2650 times:
I was wondering if anyone had a thought about what Star Alliance's strategy for Russia and the CIS nations was?
Star Alliance seems to be going after ensuring that they are covered planet-wide. Their gaps in Latin America and India seem to be closed with the latest induction of Avianca, TACA, COPA, and recent rumours about Jet Airways now that the Air India fiasco is officially done with.
Star's remaining gaps seem to be limited now to Russia and the CIS countries. With close cooperation between Lufthansa and Air Astana, a first step may be accomplished but certainly not enough to count as adequate coverage of this geographic region.
Considering LH's track record of success in pulling airlines from under the noses of other airlines/alliances right before their merger/acquisition/membership by other airlines/alliances (e.g.. SWISS, Austrian,...), as well as their ability to attract airlines to jump ship from other alliances (e.g. Continental, TAP,...)... WHAT ARE THE CHANCES THAT STAR IS ABLE TO ATTRACT AEROFLOT IN SWITCHING OVER?
Akiestar From Philippines, joined May 2009, 636 posts, RR: 0 Reply 1, posted (10 months 1 week 4 days 4 hours ago) and read 2594 times:
Quoting Qazar (Thread starter): WHAT ARE THE CHANCES THAT STAR IS ABLE TO ATTRACT AEROFLOT IN SWITCHING OVER?
I highly doubt it: SU applied for SkyTeam membership out of its own volition I suppose, and they seem to have a good working relationship with the other alliance members. As far as I'm concerned, it would take a lot of effort to get SU to switch.
Hasn't Star thought of recruiting Transaero or another Russian airline for membership?
kl911 From Ireland, joined Jul 2003, 4993 posts, RR: 13 Reply 2, posted (10 months 1 week 4 days 4 hours ago) and read 2569 times:
Quoting Qazar (Thread starter): WHAT ARE THE CHANCES THAT STAR IS ABLE TO ATTRACT AEROFLOT IN SWITCHING OVER?
Why would SU want to leave Skyteam for Star? Skyteam is a very good and succesfull alliance with strong intercontinental members and a mix of regional ones.
airevents From Germany, joined Jan 2002, 824 posts, RR: 3 Reply 3, posted (10 months 1 week 4 days 3 hours ago) and read 2442 times:
Think UT Air....
The airline also has a good relation with LH through some projects, an excellent new hub airport at Vnukovo and its network will soon cover entire Russia... They are a good quality airline, will soon have an all Western-built fleet and would fit into Star quite well in my opinion.
bestwestern From Ireland, joined Sep 2000, 6506 posts, RR: 58 Reply 4, posted (10 months 1 week 4 days 3 hours ago) and read 2333 times:
Quoting airevents (Reply 3): Think UT Air....
The airline also has a good relation with LH through some projects, an excellent new hub airport at Vnukovo and its network will soon cover entire Russia...
I agree that UT air is the best of a bad lot. They have an agressive fleet replacement policy, ordering new aircraft.
However, Considering that DME is the * hub for Moscow, UT air offers them nothing by way of connecting passengers. In saying that, Transaero really offers Star only a host of charter destinations and a lacklustre scheduled european service on dated aircraft.
Sasha From Russia, joined May 1999, 858 posts, RR: 0 Reply 5, posted (10 months 1 week 2 days 19 hours ago) and read 1536 times:
UTAir is a short range airline, by Russian "standards" and is far from quality. They can boast compliance with all the safety regulations (SAFA, IOSA etc) all they want but have already made too many press releases this year alone, tragic press releases. Including an engineer killed by a spinning prop of an ATR and not to mention the loss of an ATR mentioned by the previous poster.
Their served destinations only include European part of Russia, mostly, with a handful of what is on the other side of Ural mountains. I realise that Moscow considers itself THE RUSSIA and anything beyond that city is just countryside, but hey - the country is still widespread, geographically.
DME has been becoming a large shopping mall for some years now and considered by locals as least convenient airport to travel from/to. Parking and car access aren't optimized, bus and taxi drivers are finding it a nightmare. VKO is better in this respect and so is SVO.
Consider Yakutia (R3 / SYL). Based in YKS, with VKO being major hub and a smaller one in KRR. Their destinations are diverse and it does Far East of Russia, with some of the longest 757-200 flights in history (imho). VKO - PKC, VKO - KXK, VKO - DYR (refuel in YKS). Serving AER, OVB, BTK, too. Safety record is one incident in 10 years of operation.
bestwestern From Ireland, joined Sep 2000, 6506 posts, RR: 58 Reply 6, posted (10 months 1 week 2 days 18 hours ago) and read 1463 times:
Quoting Sasha (Reply 5): I realise that Moscow considers itself THE RUSSIA and anything beyond that city is just countryside, but hey - the country is still widespread, geographically.
Like it or not, the vast vast majority of flights in russia originate or terminate in Moscow. Russia is a very centralised country.
mogandoCI From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 7, posted (10 months 1 week 2 days 18 hours ago) and read 1442 times:
Quoting bestwestern (Reply 6): Like it or not, the vast vast majority of flights in russia originate or terminate in Moscow. Russia is a very centralised country.
True, especially when you consider that most of the land east of the Ural Mountains is just one big fat tundra
But concentrating all the wealth in a single city is still detrimental to the long term growth of a nation. At the very least, they need to focus some energy on developing St Petersburg
gr09 From Czech Republic, joined Jul 2008, 114 posts, RR: 0 Reply 8, posted (10 months 1 week 2 days 12 hours ago) and read 1216 times:
How about Ural Airlines (now all Airbus fleet), if they increase number of flights from DME? SVX has got good location, within narrow body reach from FRA. SVX itself has got great position to server East + post-Soviet countries in the region. U6 itself doesn't have wide network but imho has got potential (from my amateur's point of view).
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