ETW Staff– Mumbai
Air India, national carrier of India has signed a code-share agreement with Hong Kong Airlines (HKA). Pankaj Srivastava, commercial director, Air India and Li Dianchun, commercial director, Hong Kong Airlines, signed the agreement at a ceremony at Airlines House, New Delhi.
Under the code-share agreement, HKA will place its code on direct flights operated by Air India between Hong Kong and three cities including Delhi (DEL), Osaka (KIX) and Seoul (ICN) respectively. HKA passengers will thus have the advantage of better access to an expanded network of destinations on Air India. They will be able to enjoy daily flights between Hong Kong and Delhi, a three times weekly flight between Hong Kong and Osaka, as well as a four times weekly flight between Hong Kong and Seoul, all to be served by Air India’s B787 Dreamliner. The code share takes effect for flights booked from June 10, 2014 (HKG-DEL) and July 4, 2014 (HKG-KIX, HKG-ICN) respectively.
After the signing of the agreement, Srivastava said, “As a national carrier and India’s leading domestic and international airline, Air India feels honoured to enter into this code-share agreement with a premier airline like Hong Kong Airlines. The agreement enables Air India to get additional feed from the HKA network. We look forward to our relationship with HKA. Air India already has code share partnerships with 12 other airlines across the globe – but, at Hong Kong, HKA is the first partner of Air India.”
“With our state-of-the-art fleet of wide-body and narrow-body aircraft, we fly to 31 international destinations across five continents as well as 62 destinations within India. We are soon set to spread our wings to Rome and Milan in Italy and also to Moscow. The aircraft that will be operated under the code-share system with HKA is the world’s most advanced aircraft – the Dreamliner. The present code share with HKA is only the beginning of the partnership between the two airlines and we look forward to an expansion of the code share to also involve the transfer of AI passengers on HKA network,”added Srivastava.
Dianchun, HKA said, “As a SKYTRAX four-star airline company, Hong Kong Airlines has always been committed to strengthening its competitive offerings in Asia Pacific and to expanding its network actively. We are glad to have this opportunity to partner with Air India, to provide more travel options to our customers via this code share arrangement. The code-share agreement broadens our reach to India, Japan and Korea, making it a significant landmark in Hong Kong Airlines’ network development.”
