Thank you, Star Alliance

Why would someone take an Ethiopian Airlines flight between an airport in Brazil and another in Argentina – both far away from Ethiopia, and indeed the African continent?

….

Or travel from New Zealand to Brazil via Singapore and South Africa, crossing the Indian and Atlantic oceans, when a shorter route over the Pacific was a possibility?

The reason for both these is ‘the affiliation to Star Alliance’.

Wind back to early 2000s. I would leave the choice of my flights and travel schedules to my travel agent.

As my travels increased, I gradually learnt about global airline alliances such as Star Alliance, One World, Sky Team. Each of these alliances have ‘member airlines’, and offer benefits & privileges to their frequent flyers. The most important aspect being these benefits & privileges are available across the entire alliance network, no matter which airline’s frequent flyer one might be.

This discovery led me to become a Star Alliance frequent flyer, rising gradually from an ‘ordinary member’ to silver and then gold status. All these flights were in economy class (as per company policy).

Being a gold member, for example, allowed:

• Access to any of the 1000+ Star Alliance airport lounges worldwide – for relaxation, a meal, a shower – before or between flights.
• Additional baggage allowance
• Priority check-in and boarding at airports
• Priority baggage handling, and so on.

Thanks to my travels, I have been lucky to have been a Star Alliance / Singapore Airlines Elite Gold member for over 15 years (since 2008). This privilege ended recently.

Truth be told, this should have ended when we all went into lockdown in 2020 and (my) international travel stopped. But Singapore Airlines very kindly kept extending my ‘gold’ membership annually, till June 2023. Thanks to this generosity by Singapore Airlines, I could continue to enjoy the golden benefits between 2020 and 2023, although my travels were significantly lesser than required for this level of membership.

Thanks to this Gold tier status, I have visited and enjoyed scores of Star Alliance lounges all over the world, perhaps too many to count. While it is impossible to remember each of them, some I do remember are:

• An excellent lounge at Hongkong airport, where every single food item served was vegetarian. Totally unexpected!
• Similarly, the impressive large lounge at Los Angeles (LAX) airport had almost everything vegetarian.
• An excellent lounge at Buenos Aires’ EZE airport which allowed me to use the lounge from about 5 am (after arrival from Bogota) to just before midnight, when my Air New Zealand flight to Auckland was departing. I met 3 sets of lounge-crew during my day-long stay at this lounge, which served excellent food.
• The lounges at Terminals 2 and 3 of Singapore Changi airport, which would be my ‘most-visited lounges’ overseas.?

As my “golden run” comes to an end, I present some interesting aspects about my travels over the Star Alliance network.

1. I have flown a Star Alliance flight 418 times, covering a total of 1.6 million km.
2. Using the vast Star Alliance network, I have visited over 60 airports in 38 countries.
3. The longest flight I have done is 12266 km long non-stop service between Buenos Aires and Istanbul airports, by Turkish Airlines.
4. The longest journey I have taken – with intermediate stops – is between Christchurch and Sao Paulo via Auckland, Singapore and Johannesburg. This totalled 25248 km, spread over Air New Zealand, Singapore Airlines and South African Airways. Air New Zealand 's Auckland - Buenos Aires service had not started back then.
5. The other 20000+ km journeys I have done are: (a) Buenos Aires – Johannesburg – Singapore – Christchurch, (b) Sao Paulo – Chicago – Vancouver – Auckland – Christchurch, (c) Christchurch – Auckland – San Francisco – Washington Dulles – Sao Paulo, (d) Christchurch – Singapore – Istanbul – Dushanbe. One may notice that journeys a-b-c above start and end in the southern hemisphere but are made via an airport in the northern hemisphere.
6. The 712 km flight between Bogota, Colombia and Quito, Ecuador is my shortest journey from northern to southern hemisphere. The 744 km flight between Guayaquil, Ecuador and Cali, Colombia is my shortest journey from southern to northern hemisphere.
7. Other than Air New Zealand (195 flights, 60 of them international), the airline I have used most is Singapore Airlines – 125 flights, all international (obviously!).
8. Christchurch – Singapore – Christchurch is my most travelled international sector with 55 flights; followed by Singapore – Mumbai – Singapore sector with 26 flights. Domestically, nothing comes close to Christchurch – Auckland sector with 82 flights.
9. I got the opportunity to travel by 16 of Star Alliance’s member airlines – namely Air Canada, Air China, Air India, Air New Zealand, Avianca, COPA, Ethiopian, Eva Air, Lufthansa, SAS, Singapore Airlines, South African Airways, TAM, Turkish Airlines, United, US Airways. Additionally, I have used German Wings (Lufthansa subsidiary), Silk Air (Singapore Airlines group), Virgin Australia (code share with Air New Zealand) and Vistara (TATA – Singapore Airlines joint venture).
10. It is difficult to describe in words, but the expressions on the face of the Avianca check in agent at Cali (Colombia) were simply priceless – when her printer spat out these 4 boarding passes one after another. She asked me to explain to her my routing and the final destination, and then said it was the first time she was meeting a passenger travelling to New Zealand!

My run with Star Alliance has been a good one, allowing me to enjoy the many benefits of being a Star Alliance Gold member, while still travelling by economy class.

Thank you, Star Alliance and its member airlines for the positive experience.

Shirish Paranjape

July 2023?