Lufthansa chief operating officer Dr Karl-Friedrich Rausch has given more details on the make-up of the Star Alliance.
He said there would be 10 core members in the top tier which is already close to being formed.
Then the next stage would be to invite regional partners into the group.
The German airline, SAS, Thai Airways, Varig, Air Canada and United Airlines are the original members. Air New Zealand and Ansett Australia joined last month. All Nippon Airways is set to join in October and Singapore Airlines could be signed up this week.
British Midland, which Lufthansa uses to serve some of its non-core UK-Germany routes, would be a regional member.
Other targets include CSACzech Airlines and Denmark’s Maersk Air.
Dr Rausch said the Star Alliance will meet twice a year for strategy meetings.
n Star Alliance partnerships contributed a fifth of Lufthansa’s record pre-tax profit figure for 1998.
Lufthansa chairman Jurgen Weber said cost savings through the alliance contributed ú169.64m last year out of a total profit for the airline of ú848.18m.