Code Sharing In International Airlines

CODE SHARING IN INTERNATIONAL AIRLINES

Presented By: Group 4 PGDM-IB 2008-10

What is Code Sharing • Aviation Business Term first coined in 1989 by Qantas Airways and American Airlines. • In 1990 the Australian Airline, Qantas Airways and the U.S’s American Airlines combined services between an array of U.S. domestic cities and Australian cities creating the first Code share arrangement. • It refers to a practice where a flight operated by an airline is jointly marketed as a flight for one or more other airlines.

• The term "code" refers to the identifier used in flight schedule, generally the 2-character IATA airline designator code and flight number. Thus, XX123, flight 123 operated by the airline XX, might also be sold by airline YY as YY456 and by ZZ as ZZ9876. • The airline that actually operates the flight (the one providing the plane, the crew and the ground handling services) is called the operating carrier. The company or companies that sell tickets for that flight but do not actually operate it are called marketing carriers or validating carriers.

Under a code sharing agreement, participating airlines can present a common flight number for several reasons, including:

• Connecting flights - This provides clearer routing for

the customer, allowing a customer to book travel from point A to C through point B under one carrier's code, instead of a customer booking from point A to B under one code, and from point B to C under another code. This is not only a superficial addition as cooperating airlines also strive to synchronize their schedules and coordinate luggage handling, which makes transfers between connecting flights less time-consuming.

• Flights from both airlines that fly the same route - This provides an apparent increase in the frequency of service on the route by one airline

• Perceived service to un-served markets This provides a method for carriers who do not operate their own aircraft on a given route to gain exposure in the market through display of their flight numbers.

• In 1997, a group of five world-class airlines got together to create an alliance that brought together networks, lounge access, check-in services, ticketing and dozens of other services to improve the travel experience for customers and efficiencies for the carriers. They called it the Star Alliance network.

• Vision & Mission:- To facilitate the growth of long term results well beyond the means of individual airline’s capabilities. • Its name and emblem represent the five founding airlines - Air Canada, Lufthansa, Scandinavian Airlines System, Thai Airways International, and United Airlines. • Currently it has 21 members and 3 regional members, with Air India confirmed as future member carrier.

Low-cost Carrier & Code Sharing • Code shares go against the concept of lowcost model and can be both expensive and time consuming to implement. But enticed by incremental revenues and the opportunity to virtually expand their networks, a handful of low-cost carriers between 2004 and 2007 followed the trail blazed by Virgin Blue, which began code sharing in 2002.

• Virgin Blue code shares with V Australia and two other sister carriers, Pacific Blue and Virgin Atlantic, as well as Airlines PNG and Australia's SkyWest.

Thank You