Etihad, Airberlin Discuss Joint Plans
Etihad Airways is expanding its partnership with airberlin, which includes the unveiling of a joint livery aircraft. The two airlines unveiled an Airbus A320 aircraft in specially designed joint livery, symbolizing their close ties and marking the launch of a new Moving Forward campaign.
At an event in Berlin, Wolfgang Prock-Schauer, airberlin’s CEO, and James Hogan, Etihad Airways’ president and CEO and vice-chairman of airberlin, gave details of how travelers will continue to benefit from the special partnership and the progress made in the first two years.
“Partnerships are vital in today’s aviation industry. Our partnership provides significant benefits to Etihad Airways, airberlin, as well as to our guests. Not only do we provide an expanded offering of destinations and services, we also have developed synergies through the entire value chain," Prock-Schauer said.
"This means an increasingly attractive offer with numerous benefits for customers, and continuously improved productivity and lower costs. The positive response from our guests illustrates that we’re on the right path.”
Following the implementation of joint code sharing across the networks both airlines will strengthen the commercial partnership in 2014.
That will include the expansion of joint sales operations, building on the current services provided by 17 joint sales offices located around the world, and representation in more than 50 international markets.
“Since the launch of the partnership two years ago, commercial ties between Etihad Airways and airberlin have deepened significantly," Hogan said. "This has increased the destinations and flight options for guests and enabled both airlines to carry nearly 900,000 guests across the two networks."
The new joint “Moving Forward” media campaign will run until March 2014 and will see the new partnership logo of the two airlines featured in advertising and marketing across Germany. airberlin and Etihad Airways operate 42 weekly flights between destinations in Germany and Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates. This will increase to 49 weekly flights in February when a second daily Munich flight commences.
In 2013, 563,000 common codeshare passengers flew across the two networks, a 74 percent increase on the previous year. Currently, 66 airberlin routes carry Etihad Airways’ EY code and 33 Etihad Airways’ routes carry airberlin’s AB flight code. According to Prock-Schauer the joint route network with Etihad will offer airberlin passengers new codeshare destinations in India, Australia and South Korea.
Source: Travel Pulse, http://www.travelpulse.com/news/airlines/european-airlines-etihad-and-airberlin-discuss-joint-plans.html
