AIR INDIA'S CODESHARE STRATEGY

As Air India advances with its ambitious five-year turnaround initiative, it has begun to broaden its partnerships across various regions, including Australia, Japan, Singapore, and Europe, with the aim of delivering an unprecedented, streamlined experience for its passengers. AMEYA JOSHI reports

- AMEYA JOSHI

This January, Air India completed three years under the Tata group. As it pushed ahead with its ambitious five-year turnaround plan named Vihaan.Al, it continues to get brickbats and bouquets at the same time. Over the last six months, the airline has started expanding its partnerships. This is timed well with the merger of Vistara into Air India, giving it access to aircraft standards which were hitherto not available on its aircraft.

The airline is looking at all corners, from Australia to Japan and Singapore to Europe for partnering with airlines to ensure that it can offer a streamlined experience to its passengers like never before. The Air India group now has a formidable partnership with Singapore Airlines (which now has a 25.1 per cent stake in Air India (Air India Express is a wholly owned subsidiary) and that means it has strong backing in Star Alliance and support at multiple stations across the world where Singapore Airlines already operates and is an established brand.

A codeshare is a partnership between two or more airlines that allows one airline to sell seats on a flight operated by another airline under its own flight number. This means a single flight can have multiple flight numbers from different airlines. This enables the airlines to offer more destinations, clock higher revenue, expand the benefits of frequent flier programs and offer seamless connections.

With Equity partner Singapore Airlines

Singapore Airlines (SIA) has been at the forefront of partnership. Fifteen years since the last revision of the partnership between Singapore Airlines and Air India, a fresh update on that collaboration was announced late last year.