Virgin Australia Expands Codeshare Deal With Alitalia, Qantas With Jet Airways

7th Sep 2016

Australia's two top aviation dogs, Virgin Australia and Qantas Airways both strengthened their codeshare deals with their partners, Alitalia and Jet Airways.

Virgin's new codeshare agreement with Alitalia now offers Italians eight more destinations in Australia to fly to, including Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide, Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast, Hobart, Ballina and Coffs Harbour.

On its end, Virgin Australia will place the "VA" code on Alitalia's flights from Rome to the following: Bari, Bologna, Catania, Florence, Genoa, Lamezia Terme, Naples, Palermo, Reggio Calabria, Turin and Venice.

The two airlines already codeshare on Virgin Australia operated flights from Abu Dhabi to Sydney and to Brisbane with the "AZ" code and from Rome and Milan to Abu Dhabi on Alitalia-operated flights carrying the "VA" code.

Chief strategy and planning officer at Alitalia John Shepley said:

"The expanded cooperation with Virgin Australia will provide Italian air travellers with a wider range of Australian destinations for business travel and holidaymakers to bring Italy and Australia even closer. And this new arrangement opens up a variety of Italian cities throughout the whole country for Australian flyers."

The new codeshare flights are available via Virgin Australia's and Alitalia's reservation systems and via travel agencies.

Qantas and Jetstar Expand Codeshare Partnership

Meanwhile, Australian flag carrier, Qantas has applied with the International Air Services Commission (IASC) with the request to allow it to expand its codeshare with Indian airline Jet Airways on flights between Australia and India.

In a statement, Qantas explained what this would mean for the customers:

"The expanded codeshare arrangement provides customers with greater choice, increasing the number of codeshare services on the two carriers from 28 to 77 return services a week."

According to the application sent by Qantas, the Flying Kangaroo would put its "QF" code on Jet Airways flights from Bangkok to Mumbai and from Bangkok to Delhi, while Jet would place its code (9W) on Qantas-operated flights between Sydney and Bangkok.

If approved by IASC, the codeshare deal would start on 15th October this year.

In a statement separate to this one, Qantas also said it would codeshare on Jet Airways flights between Singapore and Chennai and between Hong Kong and New Delhi. This agreement would begin on 1st October.

Right now, Qantas codeshares on Jet Airways Singapore-Mumbai and Singapore-Delhi and on Hong Kong-Mumbai route, while Jet codeshares on Qantas flights to Singapore from Australia.