Indian low-cost carrier IndiGo and UK-based Virgin Atlantic have entered a codeshare partnership which will offer easy connections and increased opportunities for frequent flyers to earn more points than ever before.
6E and VS
The new codeshare partnership will mean passengers booking a Virgin Atlantic ticket will be able to fly on the airline’s London Heathrow to Delhi and Mumbai flights and connect to and from 7 additional cities in India. The agreement will be expanded later this year to cover a total of 16 destinations, as well as connections onto Virgin Atlantic’s US network operated via London Heathrow.
The agreement will allow Virgin Atlantic to sell seats to passengers connecting onto IndiGo flights.
The initial 7 destinations besides Mumbai and Delhi are:
- Chennai
- Bengaluru
- Hyderabad
- Kolkata
- Ahmedabad
- Goa
- Amritsar
Destinations that will be added later this year in Phase 2 are:
- Kochi
- Chandigarh
- Jaipur
- Pune
- Coimbatore
- Nagpur
- Vadodara
- Indore
- Vishakhapatnam
We’re thrilled to launch a new codeshare partnership with IndiGo. This summer marks our largest ever flying programme from India with three daily direct services to London and our new partnership takes our commitment to even greater heights. IndiGo is India’s largest airline and its extensive network will offer Virgin Atlantic customers even more choice when travelling between the UK and India, as well as offering seamless connections for the onward travel across our extensive US route network. It’s great news for our Flying Club too, by providing more opportunities for members to earn valuable points. This new partnership aims to respond to the large, fast-growing demand for visiting friends & relatives, leisure as well as business travellers looking for more choice between UK and India.
said Juha Jarvinen, Chief Commercial Officer, Virgin Atlantic.
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We are pleased to announce our codeshare with Virgin Atlantic to provide enhanced connectivity to the passengers. This will not only help offer a seamless travel experience from London to as many as 16 destinations in India, but also open up international trade opportunities throughout the country via enhanced accessibility. We look forward to having Virgin Atlantic’s customers on our lean clean flying machine, as we extend our on-time, affordable, courteous and hassle-free travel experience.
said Ronojoy Dutta, Chief Executive Officer and Wholetime Director, IndiGo.
As part of the new codeshare partnership with IndiGo, Virgin Atlantic’s Flying Club members will be able to earn both Virgin points and Tier points on every codeshare with IndiGo.
The codeshare flights will be available this week for booking for travel beyond 27th September 2022.
IndiGo – the “go-to-Indian carrier” for codeshare partnerships
IndiGo seems like the go-to-Indian carrier for foreign airlines for codeshare partnerships. This is not at all surprising given that IndiGo has a whopping 55% market share in the India and flies to more domestic destinations than any other Indian airline.
Prior to IndiGo, Jet Airways was the go-to-Indian carrier for codeshare partnerships given that Jet Airways was a full-service airline and passengers of foreign airlines could enjoy even more perks on codeshare flights. Now that Jet Airways is gone (although it’s coming back sometime this year), IndiGo has captured the opportunity and has entered into many codeshare partnerships.
IndiGo has codeshare with Turkish Airlines for a long-time. In Europe, the Indian airline has a codeshare partnership with Air France-KLM which went live in May 2022 while in United States, IndiGo has a codeshare with American Airlines. In Australia, the low-cost carrier has a codeshare with Qantas.
More and more codeshare partnerships with foreign airlines will benefit IndiGo, as passengers will prefer IndiGo over other Indian airlines.
Meanwhile, IndiGo recently announced Ras Al-Khaimah as its 100th destination.
Featured image by IndiGo
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