SkyTeam has an offer for Air India

New Delhi: SkyTeam, the second largest global alliance of airlines, has approached Air India to join its ranks as a member. The offer comes hard on the heels of rival grouping, Star Alliance's, rejection of Air India's membership.

According to officials in the ministry of civil aviation, a SkyTeam delegation, led by managing director Michael Wisbrun, met civil aviation secretary Nasim Zaidi last week and held an opening round of discussions.

It is being given to understand that Air India has now been approached by both SkyTeam as well as Oneworld with offers for membership.

''SkyTeam is one of the alliances that have approached us. Thanks to our preparations to join Star Alliance, we revamped our working on a par with the standards of any international body. We do not have any problems in joining SkyTeam and will consider its proposal seriously. But at the same time we are open to talks with Star Alliance if they want to restart a dialogue,'' aviation ministry officials have been quoted as saying.

''It is for the new chief executive, Rohit Nandan, to take a decision on terminating or reopening negotiations with Star Alliance. But the options are open,'' officials said.

SkyTeam is the second largest aviation alliance in the world serving close to about 920 destinations. Prominent SkyTeam members include Dutch carrier, KLM, AeroFlot, Delta, Alitalia, Air Europa and Vietnam Airlines.