As for Air India’s divorce from Star Alliance, this has long-term implications. When the alliance was first forged in 2007, Air India promised to meet 87 minimum joining requirements. Set to the highest standards of customer service, security and technology, some of these were expensive and complicated, like the process of integrating the ticketing codes for erstwhile Indian Airlines and Air India. But all of this was supposed to be worthwhile, for the Star Alliance would allow India’s flag-bearer to add depth to its route network, reallocating unprofitable routes, making the best of primary markets, achieving scale in marketing and maintenance costs, and increasing revenues by 5-15%. Before Star finally abandoned faith in Air India, the airline asked for and got repeated extensions. And proceeded to squander these away. Already, Star, SkyTeam and oneworld alliances (together numbering more than 50 world airlines) dominate a substantial part of global air traffic, and some experts are predicting that the true competition in a decade will be between these alliances rather than between the airlines. They will boast the three biggest check-in-desks! It’s unconscionable that Air India has frittered away this advantage.