Jet Airways, Air India sign deals with foreign carriers

New Delhi: India’s two biggest airlines, National Aviation Co. of India Ltd-run Air India and Jet Airways (India) Ltd, are entering into agreements with foreign carriers to carry passengers, especially on the busy Mumbai-London leg that has seen a big churn in airlines operating on the sector in the past year.
Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd pulled out its non-stop flight earlier this month on the Mumbai-London route while Air India last year cancelled the London-New York leg of a Mumbai flight to the US through London.
Jet Airways is now entering into a so-called code-sharing alliance with Virgin Atlantic on the Mumbai-London sector for the two daily flights it runs from Mumbai, according to a senior government official who asked not to be named.
Code-sharing refers to a ticket marketing practice among airlines that allows carriers to share two characters in codes on airline reservation systems.
For instance, such a partnership between Jet Airways and Air Canada allows a passenger to fly between Mumbai and London on a flight run by the Indian carrier and then on to various Canadian destinations such as Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal and Edmonton on Air Canada flights.
Passengers benefit by checking in baggage to their final destination and earn air miles on one or both carriers.
The code-sharing alliance with Virgin Atlantic will allow Jet Airways to partly capture the space left over by the pull-out of its Mumbai-London service. Virgin Atlantic now connects just New Delhi and London. Financial terms of the arrangement were not immediately available.
Air India, on the other hand, has got a clearance for a code-sharing agreement with Kuwait Airways from the civil aviation ministry, said a company executive, who, too, requested anonymity because he is not authorized to speak with the media.
This agreement will allow Air India’s passengers to fly from London on a Kuwait Airways flight to New York.
05/05/09 Tarun Shukla/Livemint

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Categories: Air India - International May 2009, Jet Airways May 2009, NACIL May 2009