The Franco-Dutch airline Air France-KLM has announced a codeshare partnership with India’s budget airline IndiGo. The new partnership will allow Air France-KLM’s passengers to access 25 Indian destinations. In turn, the passengers of IndiGo will gain access to more than Air France-KLM’s 250 destinations. The codeshare partnership will come into effect from February 2022.
Under the codeshare agreement, each airline can sell seats of the other airline. Thus, the Air France-KLM group will be now be sending seats of IndiGo’s flights across 25 destinations. Similarly, IndiGo will also be selling the seats of the Franco-Dutch airline to its 250+ routes across the world. Codeshare arrangement allows airlines to conduct services to destinations where it has no presence.
The agreement comes when international travel is limited and exists only between countries that have air bubble pacts in place. The government has suspended the regular scheduled international flights since March 23, 2020.
Once the news of the IndiGo - Air France-KLM arrangement surfaced, IndiGo’s shares ended 2.82% higher compared to its previous closing.
IndiGo already has codeshare agreements with carriers such as Turkish Airlines, American Airlines and Qatar Airways. Through codeshare agreement arrangements, IndiGo is expanding its offerings in the international market. According to analysts, the codeshare arrangements will boost IndiGo’s revenue once the international flights are resumed.
IndiGo launches Trichy-Colombo flights from January 10
In another development, IndiGo is set to operate four flights per week to Colombo from Trichy from January 10. Flight 6E 8351 will depart from Trichy airport at 10.05 am and reach Colombo at 10.55 am. The return flight, 6E 8353, will depart Colombo at 11.55 am and arrive at Trichy at 12.45 pm. The flights will be operational on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. The airfare will be Rs 7809 for the Trichy-Colombo sector.
Earlier, Sri Lankan Airlines operated two services a day. With the COVID-19 pandemic, the airline ceased its services. Post pandemic, it resumed one service a week.
