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Amsterdam, April 13 Air France-KLMKLM is in talks with Jet Airways and Kingfisher Airlines for having a code-share agreement, a senior KLM airline official has said.
The conclusion of the code-share agreement could help passengers, especially from smaller cities, to travel further on the network of these global airlines.
“We are in talks with Kingfisher and Jet Airways for a code-share agreement. We are possibly looking at six more destinations in India,” Mr Marnix Fruitema, Senior Vice-President, Asia Pacific, said at an interaction with a group of visiting Indian journalists. India represents about 4 per cent of their airline business.
Currently, the Netherlands-based airline KLM, which merged with Air France, has an arrangement with Kingfisher and Jet for frequent flyer miles.
“Partnerships are a key when demand is low. Kingfisher is very important in this regard. While Air France recently got permission to code share, KLM does not have a code share for passengers from Mumbai to Pune and other destinations. So we are looking to increase our products through such a collaboration,” said Mr Michel Rijgersberg, Network Planner for India and North Atlantic.
The decision to consider a code-share agreement with airlines from India, comes on the heels of KLM withdrawing services from Hyderabad and Air France pulling out from Chennai. While KLM withdrew services in February, Air France stopped operating to Chennai from end March.
KLM, like many other global airlines, has been affected by the slowdown in the US market. The strategy to align with domestic carriers is to make its India operations profitable without incurring additional cost.
Airline officials said that 17 per cent of their passenger traffic from India flies directly to European destinations, while the remaining traffic continues onwards on North Atlantic routes.
Mr Michel said that even though the company faced competition from Indian carriers who have started operating to Europe and North Atlantic as well as carriers from West Asia it hoped to maintain its market share.
Currently, KLM-Air France and NorthWest Airline enjoys a market share of 9 per cent on the India-Europe route. KLM has a code share agreement with the US-based NorthWest Airlines on the Amsterdam-Mumbai route. On the India-North Atlantic route, the market share of the combined entities is 10 per cent.
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