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 low-

cost 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