Star Alliance

Star Alliance is the world's first and largest airline alliance. Founded in 1997, its name and emblem represent the five founding airlines, Air Canada, Lufthansa, Scandinavian Airlines System, Thai Airways International, and United Airlines. Star Alliance has since grown considerably and now has 21 full and 3 regional members, with another three expected to become full members by 2009, and with one expected to become a member in 2010. Star Alliance is headquartered in Frankfurt am Main, Germany.

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Codeshare flights between these airlines are, for the most part, seamless. This tight cooperation led to suspicions of anti-competitive behavior, and the alliance was investigated by the European Union as a virtual merger of its members. Indeed, some speculated that if government regulations were relaxed, the members would merge into a single corporation[3], although no evidence has yet materialized. Prior to Star Alliance, Northwest Airlines and KLM were operating together as the forerunners of the modern airline alliance system since 1993, although there had been even earlier pairings and groupings of airlines for decades on a less formal level. The creation of Star Alliance was a milestone in airline history because of its size. It sparked the formation of rivals, notably SkyTeam and Oneworld. The alliance developed the "regional" concept in 2004, which helps Star Alliance penetrate individual markets with the regional participation of smaller carriers. Regional Star Alliance members have to be sponsored by an existing full Star Alliance member. Star Alliance members now fly 18,100 daily flights to 975 airports in 162 countries with a fleet of 3,359 aircraft. Its members carried a total of 405.7 million passengers with a turnover of US$95.3 billion in 2006. The alliance's market share is 28% of the global market based on revenue passenger kilometers (RPK). All Star Alliance carriers combined employ over 401,577 pilots, flight attendants, and other staff. Star Alliance was voted best airline alliance in the Skytrax 2007 World Airline Awards.