Star Alliance hosted its annual Christmas Lunch in Dublin’s Shelbourne Hotel yesterday afternoon.
This lunch is always a great affair every year, being one of the first opportunities to celebrate Christmas with the trade.
The afternoon was hosted by Martina Coogan (United Airlines) and Julie Murphy (ANA & Chair of Star Alliance) along with some of the members of Star Alliance.
After a warm welcome from Martina Coogan, Julie Murphy spoke about how Star Alliance is the most digitally advanced alliance in 2024 and for the fifth consecutive year, Star Alliance has been named the World’s Leading Airline Alliance at the World Travel Awards.
Other members also picked up some awards at the World Travel Awards, with TAP Air Portugal being named World’s Leading Airline to Africa and South America and Air Canada named World’s Leading Airline to North America.
Martina Coogan, went on to provide some updates from the members in the room. These included:
- A new key account manager for Aegean Airlines in Ireland, Victoria O’Mahony. Aegean have four new neo aircrafts and are serving
- There are new flights with ANA from Milan and Stockholm to Japan, which will give them 44 flights a week to Japan in 2025.
- As well as their ever popular Dublin to Toronto flight, Air Canada have winter services through Toronto connecting to Punta Cana, San José and Costa Rica, and a new London Heathrow to Dehli flight.
- EgyptAir connects Dublin to Cairo with direct flights and connects passengers to the airline’s extensive network across the Middle East, Africa, and Asia.
- Tap Air Portugal are launching a new flight to Florianópolis, Brazil and in April next year will be offering a direct flight from Lisbon to LAX.
- Turkish Airlines are launched flights to Sydney on 4th December and will be launching Melbourne in March, they will soon have 18 flights a week to over 130 destinations from Istanbul.
- United Airlines continue their 2 a day service to Newark and due to demand are bringing back their Newark service from Shannon Airport 10 days earlier. They will also soon have Star Link wifi available onboard all aircrafts, meaning you won’t have to miss a streaming or shopping opportunity while flying.
Ciara O’Brien attended from Dublin Airport and spoke about the 85% growth of the Star Alliance airlines. Star Alliance members cover 16 destinations directly from Dublin Airport which counts as 6% of travel.
Declan Power from Shannon Airport mentioned how they have grown 60% with these airlines over the last 10 years, and with their awards in customer service and brand management are looking forward to the continued growth.
We then enjoyed a fantastic and festive lunch, and gifts provided by Shannon Airport. (I’m a big Butlers Chocolates fan). The afternoon was completed with a special word and a gift to Marie Grenham, who is retiring this year and will be dearly missed in the industry.
