May 13, 2002—Star Allianceå?, the airline network for Earth, continues to introduce new customer benefits as part of its ongoing efforts to deliver a smooth travel experience across all member carriers. Coinciding with its fifth anniversary the 12-member, 14-brand airline group recently extended its mobile service offerings to also include the Pocket PC platform, thereby achieving another industry first manifesting the groupå‘s leading position among the global airline alliances.

In addition to thousands of flights operated by the member carriers the Star Alliance timetable application for pocket PCs offers a wealth of other useful information. Downloadable from the Star Alliance website www.staralliance.com it provides details such as departure and arrival terminals, and flight distances in kilometers as well as in miles. An extensive list of airline contact addresses worldwide is also displayed.

The application features dynamic connection building, which will design itineraries based on the customer’s input of origin and destination airports and other specific preferences.  Information about operating carrier, type of aircraft, flying time and meal service on the route requested is also shown.  Selected flights can easily be added to the pocket PC’s calendar. Flight schedules are updated every week.

?We constantly look for opportunities to serve Star Alliance customers worldwide,” said Dieter Armgardt, Director - Business Development. ?Last year we introduced a downloadable and highly acclaimed timetable for Palm OS devices. We have also developed a WAP portal that provides easy access to the Star Alliance or member carriers’ travel services and information via WAP supported networks.”

?With the introduction of the pocket PC application we are now in a position where we serve the most commonly used or mainstream handheld devices,” Dieter Armgardt said.

Star Alliance, the first truly global airline alliance, was established on May 14, 1997. The member carriers are Air Canada, Air New Zealand, All Nippon Airways - ANA, Austrian Airlines, bmi british midland, Lauda Air, Lufthansa, Mexicana, SAS Scandinavian Airlines, Singapore Airlines, Thai Airways International, Tyrolean Airways, United Airlines and VARIG Brazilian Airlines.

The Star Alliance network currently encompasses 729 airports in 124 countries being served by almost 11,000 daily flights. This equates into a Star Alliance aircraft taking off or landing somewhere in the world every four seconds.

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