Star Alliance
From wiki.flightgear.org
| Virtual Star Alliance | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | |||||
| Hubs | Frankfurt, Germany (Headquarters) | ||||
| Active | Yes | ||||
| Callsign | Real = (Callsign + *), Virtual = (your designated callsign) | ||||
| Fleet | Star Alliance airlines (2009), and virtual member airlines | ||||
| Website | |||||
VSA is currently under revision. Developments will finish within the coming week or two.
- Active: Yes
- Formed: April 26, 2009
- 975+ destinations
- 162 countries
- "The Way the Earth Connects"
The Virtual Star Alliance is FlightGear's largest airline alliance. Founded in 2009, Star Alliance was created to help promote a more realistic airline environment in the FlightGear community. Star Alliance purpose is to have its airline members try to follow as closely parallel to the Star Alliance of the real world, thus promoting realism.
Contents |
Purpose and Benefits
All airlines have the option to leave Star Alliance. Star Alliance is here to help promote realism and the FlightGear community. All designated airports and their terminals would experience a growth in commercial aircraft traffic, thus increasing the realism of an airport environment. All virtual and realistic member airlines would be able to gain more members or pilots, and enjoy a more secure stance on surviving the FlightGear World. By doing this, it will help the FlightGear community gain grounds on flight simulation, expand virtual airlines, and achieve both Star Alliance's goals on promoting realism, and ensuring community, virtual airlines, and customer satisfaction.
Origins
The virtual Star Alliance was founded on April 26, 2009. Just prior to its creation, the virtual Star Alliance was first meant to be a virtual airline fleet under the name of Continental Airlines. During this time in reality however, Continental Airlines was switching away from its former Sky Team Alliance to Star Alliance. Realizing that the completion of this switch over was only months away, it soon became clear to the founders that by including mulitple airlines under a single alliance, the idea could provide much more freedom and opportunity to its members and still create a more realistic aviation environment in flight simulation and still follow the realism from the real world.
So on the first day of its creation, it was announced that Continental Airlines would be joining Star Alliance and thus indicated the slow transformation from an airline to an alliance. By June 3, 2009, the alliance was formally named and understood as the Continental/Star Alliance fleet. By August 5, 2009, the alliance was officially named the Continental/Star Alliance. The title change was intended to help, and did so very well, all current member and prospective pilots realize the existence of the transformation, understand the expansion of their freedoms, and be able to stay informed about the alliance's intentions. Not officially named, but to serve as a clarification, the title on the Flight Gear forum was changed from "Continental Fleet Start Up in KSFO!" to "Continental joining Star Alliance" on Aug 6, 2009. Finally on August 15, 2009, including the title on the forum, Continental/Star Alliance was officially renamed to Star Alliance. From this point onward, the name Star Alliance would take on a whole new and greater meaning, especially for the founders. Virtual Star Alliance's Promotional Video
The Original Founders
On April 26, 2009, Star Alliance was founded upon by two people who go by the Flight Gear names of Wookierabbit (which is me) and Redneck (co-founder.) During the beginning stages, Wookierabbit was Chief Executive Officer (CEO), and Redneck took the position of Project Manager. However, by the time business was up and running around early July of 2009, Wookierabbit voluntarily resigned his position and appointed Redneck as CEO of Star Alliance. This was due to the certain responsibilities that Wookierabbit felt he needed to uphold in reality and devote time to. Currently, Redneck is Chief Executive Officer of Star Alliance. This means that Wookierabbit will not be able to fly on Flight Gear for the majority of the Fall, Spring, and some portions of the Summer starting by early July 2009. Wookierabbit continues to monitor the alliance's conditions and is helping create a website and wiki article for the virtual business.
--Wookierabbit 03:17, 22 August 2009 (EDT)
Membership History
At its founding, Star Alliance consisted only a total of 25 airlines. The first cluster of airlines were that of the real Star Alliance, consisting both the group of airlines starting from the year 2009 and those of future airlines which ran up to the year 2010. 21 Airlines and Counting!
As Star Alliance's popularity quickly grew, the urge from other FlightGear virtual airlines to join did as well. Despite the goal to promote realism in its purist form, it soon became apparent to the founders that a minor correction was needed to be made to its agenda. By providing more selections and opportunities to pilots, Star Alliance would have greater chances surviving and prevailing in the Flight Gear world. By this reason, Star Alliance was quickly able to come to a compromise by allowing virtual airlines to be added to its already existing and real airline group.
The compromise was hardly a setback against Star Alliance's goals. In fact, the decision was to become a great benefit. By just gaining more member pilots alone, Star Alliance would not only be able to accomplish its goals, but would also be able to help the FlightGear community as well. Thus resulting in more and more terminals at airports becoming busier with traffic which helps promote a more realistic airport environment, and virtual airline members standing more of a chance at surviving and prospering.
Alliance Partnership
The official partnership between Star Alliance and Sky Alliance was on October 2, 2009.
Star Alliance's Airline Fleet
Realistic Airlines
| Real Airlines | Country | Joined | Virtual Airlines | Sky Alliance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | USA | 1997 | ||
| Lufthansa | Germany | 1997 | ||
| Air Canada | Canada | 1997 | N/A | |
| SAS | Scandinavia | 1997 | ||
| Thai | Thailand | 1997 | ||
| ANA | Japan | 1999 | ||
| Air New Zealand | New Zealand | 1999 | ||
| Austrian Airlines | Austria | 2000 | ||
| Singapore Airlines | Singapore | 2000 | ||
| British Midland | U.K. | 2000 | ||
| Asiana Airlines | South Korea | 2003 | ||
| LOT | Poland | 2003 | ||
| Spanair | Spain | 2003 | ||
| Croatia Airlines | Croatia | 2004 | ||
| U.S. Airways | USA | 2004 | ||
| Adria | Slovenia | 2004 | ||
| Blue1 | Finland | 2004 | ||
| TAP Portugal | Portugal | 2005 | ||
| South African Airways | South Africa | 2006 | ||
| Swiss International Air Lines | Switzerland | 2006 | ||
| Air China | China | 2007 | ||
| Shanghai Airlines | China | 2007 | ||
| Turkish Airlines | Turkey | 2008 | ||
| EgyptAir | Egypt | 2008 | ||
| Continental Airlines | USA | Oct 27, 2009 | ||
| Brussels Airlines | Belgium | Dec 2009 | ||
| TAM Airlines | Brazil | April 2010 | ||
| Air India | India | 2010 | ||
| Aegean Airlines | Greece | May 2010 |
- Downloadable liveries and the addition to becoming a member represents the airlines above.
- Skynet is not a member of Star Alliance. Codeshares flights with CAS.
External Links
Resources
Star Alliance in the Real World Accessed 22 Aug 09.
Simple, and Highly Detail Information About Star Alliance, Wikipedia. Accessed 22 Aug 09.
