The passengers who are travelling from Mumbai to African destinations have reason to cheer. National carrier Air India (AI) has signed a memo of understanding withEthiopian Airlines (ET). Being members of the Star Alliance network, AI and ET will explore expanding their agreement to more destinations in Africa and India. Now Air India and Ethiopian airlines code-sharing passengers can explore various African destinations with a single ticket.
Previously, due to inadequate choice, passengers had to use various connecting flights of different airlines which was time-consuming and expensive.
Tewolde Gebremariam, CEO, Ethiopian Airlines told dna that both airlines have already started code-sharing on Kenyan and Tanzanian routes, and would expand the same to entire Africa and beyond the gateway cities of Delhi and Mumbai that Ethiopian airlines currently operates on the India network. Ethiopian airlines covers 49 destinations in the African continent.
Tewolde elaborated, “We are very happy to expand our code-share partnership with Air India by adding domestic points in India and destinations in Africa. There is now benefit not only to the travelling public as a whole but to both airlines. Currently, we have daily flights to both Mumbai and Delhi. Going forward, we plan to have double daily flights on both destinations very soon.”
Rajendra Chopra, an electric cable businessman from Mumbai said, “I am a frequent flyer to various destinations in African countries for business purposes, but had a limited choice to reach out there. Hats off to Air India for having signed a code-sharing agreement with Ethiopian airlines. Now we can reach various destinations in time without any hassle.”
Pankaj Srivastava, director- commercial, Air India, said, “It is indeed a significant benefit to be able to work with Star Alliance member like Ethiopian to serve where AI has no operations. However, until then, our Star partner Ethiopian provides an opportunity to AI to make trips to multiple destinations in the African market through their wide network in Africa; over Addis Ababa which is geographically well located to connect to the other African markets. We will soon be expanding our reach to additional destinations in Africa through our code share partnership with Ethiopian.”
“With this association, AI passengers get better travel opportunities on combined networks of AI/ET- under one airline code, with seamless transfers including through check-in of baggage. The passengers who are members of Frequent Flyer Programme (FFP) also get the advantage of accruing and redeeming mileage on a much larger network of Star carriers including Ethiopian,” added Srivastava.
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