SpiceJet Ltd. said today that it has signed a codeshare agreement with Emirates, allowing passengers of the budget carrier to fly to destinations across America, Europe, Africa and the Middle East.
This is the first such agreement signed by the Dubai-based airline with an Indian airline. It could lead to incremental revenue for SpiceJet from passengers travelling to these destinations—dependent on a revenue-sharing agreement between the two carriers. Nearly 30.7 lakh passengers flew between 20 destinations in India to Dubai in the three months through December 2018, according to data from Directorate General of Civil Aviation.
This partnership comes at a time when Jet Airways (India) Ltd., once India's largest airline by market value, shut its operations last week. Earlier, Jet Airways had a codeshare agreement with Etihad Airways, the national airline of the United Arab Emirates.
The agreement could bode well for SpiceJet, according to Santosh Hiredesai, aviation analyst with SBICAP Securities, as international passenger growth is picking up. “This... could bolster its passenger growth and market share on the international routes.”
Passengers of the Gurgaon-based airline travelling from Delhi, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Kochi, Amritsar, Jaipur, Pune, Mangaluru, Madurai, Kozhikode and 41 other domestic destinations that the airline operates to, it said in an exchange filing, can access Emirates' global network.
The deal, the filing said, will add a total of 67 weekly connections between Emirates' hub in Dubai to Indian destinations.
“Optimised scheduling will allow for minimal transit times between India and these global destinations and travellers on these codeshare routes will be able to book connecting flights using a single reservation,” the statement quoted Chairman and Managing Director Ajay Singh as saying.
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