Friday 18 September

V Australia to codeshare with Emirates on trans-Tasman routes

Virgin Blue CEO Brett Godfrey and Emirates senior vice president,
commercial operations Far East and Australasia, Richard Jewsbury signed a codeshare agreement yesterday for a selection of their trans-Tasman routes.   It is the first time Emirates airlines has signed a codeshare deal with an Australian carrier.

Codesharing means a flight carries a flight number for each of the airlines, enabling both airlines to sell seats on the same flight. This co-operative system maintains competition, to an extent, but it eliminates destructive competition which, for example, makes thin routes unfeasible.

The flights under this codeshare agreement include VA 2 and VA 6002 on the LASydney-Auckland route, and VA 1 and VA 6003 on the Christchurch-
Sydney-LA route and flights VA 2 and VA 6004 on the LA-Sydney-
Christchurch route.  Virgin Blue Group already has an interline deal with Emirates, while both carriers share reciprocal frequent flyer benefits.

Editors Comment - It good to see the airlines finding ways of keeping routes up and running rather than taking the traditional, pessimistic view that if the route is running a little slow, just kill it !   Maybe Qantas should have a closer look at some of the routes they are reducing and codeshare with some of the many eager takers for the Cairns routes.....Just a thought !