El Al Israel Airlines Ltd. (TASE: ELAL) has signed a codesharing agreement with LOT Polish Airlines, the Polish national carrier.
A codesharing agreement enables airlines to sell seats on each other's flights on shared routes. El Al will now be able to sell tickets on a LOT flight to Warsaw, for example. Each company sets its own ticket prices, with the passenger being informed in advance when a codeshare ticket is involved, among other things through the four digits making up the flight number.
El Al will also operate its code for LOT flights from Warsaw on five international routes, including Lviv (Ukraine), Vilna and Kaunas (Lithuania), Riga (Latvia), and Tallinn (Estonia). Flights will be marketed on El Al's LY code and operated by LOT and marketed on LOT's LO code and operated by El Al.
El Al recently signed an agreement with Vietnam Airlines, and also has agreements with various airlines, such as American Airlines, Qantas, Swiss International Airlines, Iberia, TAP Air Portugal, Thai Airways, and others. These agreements are especially important for El Al, which is not a member of any aviation alliance, such as Star Alliance (Lufthansa/United Airlines) or One World (British Airways/American Airlines).
El Al CEO Gonen Usishkin said, "This agreement enables El Al to expand the timetable we offer our loyal customers for Poland and the entire region."
LOT CEO Rafal Milczarski added that the agreement would enable the companies "to join forces and utilize all of the existing synergy between our routes. In this way, we will offer our passengers broader service that will make a significant contribution to the development of relations between our countries."
LOT Airlines, whose hub is Warsaw, flies nine million passengers a year to 105 destinations, including destinations in the US and the Far East.
El Al also took action recently to increase the number of seats on its flights to Bangkok, Thailand. The company, which is the only carrier operating direct flights from Tel Aviv to Bangkok, announced that it was replacing the Boeing 777-200 airliners it uses on the route, which have 279 seats, with Boeing 747-400 airliners capable of carrying 403 passengers.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on December 18, 2018
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2018