By IANS,
Dubai : Etihad Airways, the national carrier of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), has entered into a code-share agreement with leading Indian private carrier Jet Airways.
Under the deal, which will come into effect July 1, the Abu Dhabi-based airline will place its two-letter ‘EY’ code on all Jet Airways flights from its own home base to New Delhi and Mumbai.
In turn, Jet Airways will place its ‘9W’ code on the daily services operated by Etihad on the same routes.
This means passengers of one airline will be able to earn and redeem miles on flights of the other in India and worldwide.
Additionally, the agreement will also provide additional connectivity for people wishing to travel to India from key destinations on the Abu Dhabi-based airline’s network, including Damascus, Beirut and Jeddah in West Asia, as well as Geneva, Munich, Manchester, New York and Toronto.
Etihad Airways chief executive James Hogan described Abu Dhabi as the destination of future for Indian industrialists. “Abu Dhabi intends to invest $170 billion in the next 10 years on infrastructure development and is the most sought after destination by Indian industrialists. Thus our agreement comes at a crucial juncture wherein passengers will have flexibility of flight services,” he said in Mumbai.
“The Mumbai-Abu Dhabi and Delhi-Abu Dhabi routes hold great potential in terms of large passenger volumes,” Jet Airways chairman Naresh Goyal said.
He however denied the pact was a fallout of the steep rise in aviation turbine fuel prices that has pushed up operation costs of all airlines across the world.
“Such such code-sharing alliances are common in the industry,” Goyal said. “We were looking to enhance our presence on these sectors by means of a code-share alliance with a carrier whose commitment to service and product quality closely mirrors our own.”
Etihad also has code-share agreements with eight other airlines: Yemen Airways, Saudi Arabia Airlines, Brussels Airlines, Sri Lankan Airlines, Royal Air Maroc, Philippine Airlines, Middle East Airlines and the Britain-based airline BMI.