National carrier Air India on Friday announced its decision to join Star Alliance, the alliance of 28 leading international carriers.

The carrier said in a statement that Star Alliance had unanimously lifted the earlier suspension of the process for it's entry into the Alliance.

Announcing the development, the carrier said, "Star Alliance has unanimously decided to lift the earlier suspension of the process for Air India entry into the Alliance. With this decision, final process for eventual entry of Air India has begun."

The proposal of allowing Air India to enter the Alliance was kept on hold since July 2011 as the airline had not fulfilled several obligatory conditions.

The carrier claimed that its entry into the Alliance would offer passengers huge benefits, including a wider choice of flights, seamless transfers while travelling across the world, and access to facilities at more than 1,000 lounges worldwide.

The Star Alliance, which was established in 1997, operates as many as 21,900 flights to 1,328 airports in around 195 countries per day.