El Al has signed a cooperation agreement for North American flights with US carrier Delta Air Lines (NYSE: DAL), the world’s third largest airlines.
Among other things, the code sharing agreement is designed to expand the list of destinations available to passengers on El Al flights to the US and Canada. “Globes” reported the negotiations for the agreement at the beginning of the week.
The agreement with Delta, which operates 822 planes to 234 destinations in 46 countries, is a continuation of an agreement signed several years ago between the two companies. For the first time, Delta will operate flights under a joint flight code with a foreign company on flights between Canada and the US. The previous agreement concerned only flights within the US and between Israel and the US.
El will operate its flight code on Delta flights from New York to eight US destinations: Atlanta, Washington DC, Cincinnati, Dallas, Salt Lake City, Phoenix, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.
El Al passengers will be able to connect with Delta flights from direct El flights from Israel to Kennedy Airport in New York, Newark, Chicago, Miami, Los Angeles, and Toronto.
The El Al agreement with Delta follows an agreement with Air Canada to operate joint flights between Toronto and Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, Vancouver, and Montreal.
El Al CEO Amos Shapira called the agreement with Delta “another strategic milestone in the cooperation between the companies.”
El Al is now competing not only with Continental Airlines (NYSE: CAL), which operates direct flights between New Jersey and Israel, but also with new competition on the key trans-Atlantic route, such as the code sharing agreement for flights from Israel between Swiss International Airlines and American Airlines, the world’s largest carrier.
That agreement enables passengers from Israel to reach 220 American Airlines destinations in the US by way of Switzerland, with one ticket.
When the 2003 summer season begins, El Al will also face the beginning of Israir flights to New York. Among other things, El Al will lower its prices, in order to make it difficult for Israir to make a profit on the route.
El Al conducts at least three flights daily to New York in the summer. 700,000 passengers fly on the Israel-US route annually. While the security situation has reduced traffic, there is intense competition to fly delegations, Israelis residing in the US and visiting Israel, haredi (ultra-Orthodox) Jews, students, and tourists from Israel.
Delta formerly conducted regular flights to Israel, but discontinued them, after failing to make a profit on the route.
Published by Globes [online] - www.globes.co.il - on January 16, 2003