India's national carrier Air India announced on Feb. 2 that it has been invited to join the prestigious Star Alliance, the only Indian member to be part of the group.

The move will offer Air India access to more than 16,000 daily flights operated by the 17 Star Alliance members around the world that include Lufthansa, United Airlines and Air Canada.

Air India is launching a daily non-stop New York-Delhi service from Feb. 8 with a state-of-the-art Boeing 777-200LR aircraft to reduce the travel time between the two cities to 14 hours.