NEW DELHI: Vistara, the full-service Indian airline, is set to expand its services in Japan, offering flyers more frequent routes between Tokyo and India. The airline on Friday announced its code-share pact with Japan Airlines (JAL), making it the fourth such tie-up for the youngest full-service domestic carrier.
“The code-share flights will offer convenient connections to and from a daily flight that Japan Airlines already operates to Delhi directly from Tokyo Narita,” the company said in a statement. According to the agreement, flyers can book tickets from February 26, 2019, on all channels and major GDS systems, for travel from February 28, 2019.
Code-sharing allows partner airlines to provide seamless connectivity to their passengers through each other’s network, while an interline arrangement refers to a pact to issue and accept tickets for flights that are operated by the partner airline. And with national polls just a couple of months away, an approval is unlikely to come by anytime soon.
Sanjiv Kapoor, chief strategy and commercial officer, Vistara, said that “this partnership will help Vistara offer greater convenience and variety of choice to customers with a comprehensive network.”Both JAL and Vistara already have an interline/through check-in partnership and the two airlines had signed a Memorandum of Understanding in September 2017 to pursue commercial opportunities together.
As per the pact, JAL will add ‘JL’ designator code to around 32 Vistara flights that operates across major metro cities. Headquartered in the New Delhi, Vistara operates over 800 flights a week to 22 domestic destinations, while JAL has a fleet of 233 aircraft operating across 349 airports.