China Southern Airlines has taken its partnership with British Airways up a notch, entering into a joint venture agreement with the Oneworld alliance member.
The wide-ranging partnership will cover codesharing, frequent flyer programmes, as well as passenger benefits, says China Southern.
At the onset, the codesharing agreement will cover 14 domestic and international UK and Chinese routes.
BA will put its code on China Southern-operated flights between Guangzhou, Sanya, Wuhan, Zhengzhou and London. China Southern, meanwhile, will codeshare BA’s London-Beijing Daxing, as well as London-Shanghai Pudong flights.
Domestically, BA will put its code on China Southern’s flights out of Shanghai Pudong to Harbin, Shenyang and Changchun. In turn, China Southern’s code will be placed on flights from London to Edinburgh, Glasgow, Manchester, Newcastle and Belfast.
China Southern states that more routes will be added in the future.
The latest joint venture builds on a 2017 agreement through which BA put its code on flights to four domestic points in China. BA was also the first international carrier to move operations to Beijing Daxing airport, in a move to develop its partnership with China Southern, which will base its entire Beijing operations at the new airport.
BA chief Alex Cruz says the partnership “will provide significant benefits” to both carriers. China Southern group general manager Ma Shulun adds that the carrier “attaches great importance to the UK market” and regards BA as an “important partner”.
China Southern’s partnership with BA comes on the back of its cosying up to Oneworld members. It also has codeshare agreements with Finnair, American Airlines and Japan Airlines.
