Malaysia Airlines (MAS) has signed its first commercial co-operation agreement with a US carrier, forming a partnership with Northwest Airlines. The agreement entails codesharing on MAS services between Kuala Lumpur and Los Angeles, and on Northwest's Kuala Lumpur-Detroit flights. The carriers say they plan to increase co-operation to US and Malaysian domestic routes, which could also be extended to some MAS services within Asia, and US-Malaysia routes via west Asia and Europe. MAS has also signed an agreement with THY Turkish Airlines which will lead to codesharing on services between Istanbul and Kuala Lumpur. SAS and Icelandair have agreed a codeshare on routes between Scandinavia and the USA operated by Icelandair and routes operated by SAS from Scandinavia to destinations in Europe. US Airways is boosting its presence in Europe with new services to Paris and Manchester. Flights between Paris and Charlotte start next April and the Manchester route will link with Philadelphia from May. US Airways has already announced plans to link Charlotte with Frankfurt next May. American Eagle has expanded regional jet services at its hub at Chicago O'Hare International Airport, replacing turboprop flights to Evansville, Fort Wayne, Madison, Green Bay, Grand Rapids and Milwaukee. The services will be flown with Embraer RJ-135s and RJ-145s. Eva Air's three weekly services linking Amsterdam with Taipei, Taiwan, which operate via Dubai, will switch to Bangkok as the stopping point on the route, from 31 October. Eva Air will continue to serve Dubai on its route between Paris and Taipei. Qantas is to codeshare with Samoa-based Polynesian Airlines on services from Melbourne/Sydney via Auckland or Wellington, New Zealand. The deal wraps up most of the south-west Pacific for Qantas, which holds similar agreements with several airlines in the region.
Source: Flight International
