EVA Air joins Star Alliance
EVA Air, the well-known Taiwanese airline that flies from Amsterdam to Bangkok, will officially join Star Alliance in June. This is reported by various media.
This decision corresponds to an earlier intention and the signing of an agreement in 2012 whereby the airline alliance expressed the ambition to add EVA Air to the members. Star Alliance is an alliance of cooperating airlines founded in 1997. The headquarters is in Frankfurt, Germany. The German airline Lufthansa is seen as the main carrier of Star Alliance.
The primary goal of the alliance is to codeshare travelers with convenient onward connectivity through Star Alliance airlines through better connections and coordinated real-time ticket reservations through Amadeus GDS, Worldspan, Sabre, and Galileo GDS. The secondary goal is uniform service quality and mutual recognition of the members' Frequent Flyer Programs.
EVA Air now becomes the second Taiwanese airline to join one of the major airline alliances. In September 2011, competitor China Airlines became a member of SkyTeam, the alliance of Air France and KLM, among others.
EVA Air's route network includes a total of sixty destinations in Asia/Pacific, North America and Europe, including Amsterdam Schiphol. After joining Star Alliance's extensive global route network, EVA Air will receive the following airlines:
- Aegean Airlines (Greece)
- Air Canada (Canada)
- Air China (China)
- Air New Zealand (New Zealand)
- All Nippon Airways (Japan)
- Asiana Airlines (South Korea)
- Austrian (Austria)
- Avianca/TACA Airlines (Latin America)
- Brussels Airlines (Belgium)
- Copa Airlines (Panama)
- Croatia Airlines (Croatia)
- EgyptAir (Egypt)
- Ethiopian Airlines (Ethiopia)
- EVA Air (Taiwan,China) as of June 18, 2013
- LOT Polish Airlines (Poland)
- Lufthansa (Germany)
- SAS (Scandinavia)
- Singapore Airlines (Singapore)
- South African Airways (South Africa)
- Swiss International Air Lines (Switzerland)
- TAM Linhas Aéreas (Brazil)
- TAP Portugal (Portugal)
- Thai Airways International (Thailand)
- Turkish Airlines (Turkey)
- United Airlines (US)
- US Airways (US)
That's nice, but for me it's mainly about saving Frequent Flyer points.
China Airlines, for example, is part of Skyteam, but you cannot save Flying Blue points there at CA….. they continue to do so on their own system. Does the same apply to EVA?
I can earn Flying Blue points with China Air. Please mention when booking or checking in that you want Flying Blue miles, otherwise your miles will indeed be credited to the CA system as standard.
@Pieter: Star Alliance has its own frequent flyer program, in which you can collect 'miles' with all affiliated companies.
I myself am a frequent flyer with Singapore Airlines, for example, but I have also 'earned' miles on flights with Thai Airways, Turkish Airlines and South African Airways. So many possibilities to collect and use miles!
Good question Peter!
But I'm afraid they'll keep their own savings system (at least for now). Because integrating will still require a lot of discussions.
Peter ,
Since a little over a year you can also have your China Airlines points transferred to your Flying Blue card .
Unfortunately, it is not possible to transfer the points you had previously saved with China Airlines to Flying Blue, I tried but got zero on the request.
Each alliance does not have its own frequent flyer program. The airlines do. They adapt their systems to each other so that you can use your Miles if you fly with another airline.
EVA AIR joins the star club on June 18th