Star had put AI's entry on hold three years back due to apprehensions expressed by other carriers. Asked what had changed from then, Schwab said: "It's a very different AI. They have been through a difficult merger process. But they have a strong management team that led to substantial improvements in the airline," said Schwab, while complimenting the leadership of Nandan — AI's first successful CMD in years as per a report in TOI.

While AI has shown improvement, the fact remains Star desperately needed a member from India to take on the ever-increasing might of Gulf carriers. Together, Emirates and Etihad will soon transfer the real hubs of Indian travel to Dubai and Abu Dhabi, respectively.

To effectively counter this challenge, AI will now tweak its schedules to become more attractive for passengers and wean them away from the Gulf carriers. "AI will tweak its schedules to align their flight timings with those of the 13 Star members which currently fly into India. A similar attempt will be made to provide seamless connectivity at foreign airports also by coordinating arrival and departure of flights with schedules of other Star members," Schwab said.

After becoming a part of Star, it will be expected to deliver service standards that its counterparts like Singapore Airlines and Lufthansa, AI is working on that front — something which has not been its core strength in past two decades. "We have asked IATA to undertake quarterly passenger satisfaction surveys and have undertaken a customer service improvement program with Star. The results are encouraging and we are focusing on few areas where the survey shows we need improvement. We have also started taking direct passenger surveys and get about 900 responses daily," said Nandan.