The Lufthansa Group and Air China have signed a joint venture designed to expand their codeshare deals and enhance their commercial partnership.
It means the pair will jointly operate on all connections between Europe and China, which is what they agreed to do as part of a memorandum of understanding in summer 2014.
"As the flag carrier, Air China is the ideal partner for the Lufthansa Group in the People’s Republic of China. This ground-breaking joint venture will fundamentally strengthen our competitive position on routes between Europe and China. The significantly enhanced partnership will enable us to create additional benefits for customers," said Carsten Spohr, chairman of the Executive Board and CEO of Deutsche Lufthansa AG.
"The Chinese aviation market is one of the most important growth markets worldwide. We want to profit from this growth together with our Star Alliance partner Air China."
The deal will see better coordinated timetables, the introduction of common fares, and more co-operation with corporate and frequent flyer programmes.
In addition to Lufthansa and Air China, the agreement extends to Lufthansa’s subsidiaries Austrian Airlines and Swiss International Air Lines.
The commercial joint venture is scheduled to start at the beginning of the 2017 summer flight timetable.
This is Lufthansa’s third joint venture in Asia, after it signed similar deals with Japanese airline All Nippon Airlines (ANA) and Singapore Airlines.
