Air India seals codeshare alliance with Air New Zealand, Avianca

Providing a seamless connectivity to its passengers bound for New Zealand and Colombia, national carrier Air India has sewed up a codeshare alliance with Air New Zealand and Avianca.

The two partnerships were sealed during the 71st Annual General Meeting of the International Air Transport Association in Miami, early this week.

Both Air New Zealand and Avianca are part of the global airlines group Star Alliance, of which Air India is also a member.

Code-sharing allows an airline to book its passengers on its partner carriers and provide seamless transport to multiple destinations where it has no presence.

Under the codeshare agreement with Air New Zealand, Air India will place its code on Air New Zealand's services from Melbourne, Sydney, Hong Kong and Singapore to destinations in New Zealand, Air India said on Friday.

The state-run carrier would also codeshare on Air New Zealand's domestic network. In turn, Air New Zealand will place its code exclusively on Air India's services to Delhi from Sydney, Melbourne, Hong Kong, Bangkok and Singapore.

In addition, Air New Zealand will gain access to six points of call in India-Mumbai, Kolkatta, Hyderabad, Chennai, Bangalore and Cochin apart from Delhi, the airline said.

As part of its codeshare partnership with the Colombian national airline, which is a free flow pact, Avianca would codeshare as a marketing carrier on Air India operated flights on the Delhi-New York and Delhi-London sectors and Air India would code share as a marketing carrier on Avianca operated flights on the New York-Bogota/Medellin/Cartagena and London-Bogota sectors, the airline said.

The code share agreement with Avianca is subject to flinalisation of an Air Services Agreement between India and Colombia and other regulatory approvals. The agreement will enable both airlines to get additional feed from each other's network as it would enable Air India to reach out to the South American market.

The agreement means better connecting times, seamless travel, more travel options and more competitive fares for passengers traveling between both carriers' home markets, for which Air India and Avianca are the premier carriers, Air India said.