Is airBaltic angling itself to join Star Alliance?

In times of crisis, airlines can reinvent themselves, recalibrate and adapt. For instance, airBaltic renewed its fleet at a higher pace than it had previously planned due to the pandemic, transitioning to an all-Airbus A220 fleet. Could there be more changes in the near future for the Latvian flag carrier? AirBaltic CEO Martin Gauss said that airBaltic's first aircraft to be based outside of the Baltics would be stationed in Tampere, Finland. He added that from there, it would serve Frankfurt and Munich, which are major Lufthansa hubs, as well as Copenhagen and Oslo, hub airports for SAS Scandinavian Airlines. This makes sense, as both airlines have codeshare agreements with airBaltic. (The Tampere-based jet will also operate services to leisure destination favorites Malaga and Rhodes.) However, if the all-Airbus A220 operator was to contemplate taking the collaboration a step further and join the Star Alliance, of which SAS and Lufthansa are both a part, what would that mean? The Riga-based airline has codeshare agreements in place with several other carriers. From Star Alliance, these include Aegean Airlines, Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines, and LOT Polish Airlines, but also carriers from different alliances. Among them are oneworld's British Airways and Iberia, as well as SkyTeam's Air France and Romanian flag carrier TAROM. airBaltic also maintains interline agreements with almost all Star Alliance members such as United Airlines, Turkish Airlines, and Air Canada. However, there are also partnerships with operators such as Delta Air Lines and Qatar Airways, members of SkyTeam and oneworld, respectively. Story has more.<br/>