Virgin forges codeshare with ANA

Virgin Atlantic is looking to further penetrate the Japanese business travel sector by agreeing a codeshare deal with All Nippon Airways.

The commercial tie-up, due to be in place from August, will give the UK carrier a heighted presence in Japan through ANA, which carries 50 million passengers a year.

The agreement means the two airlines will codeshare on their respective daily flights between London Heathrow and Tokyo.

It means that passengers will have the choice of a morning and evening departure from London and they will be able to fly onwards in Japan on ANA’s domestic services. Meanwhile, ANA passengers can fly on Virgin services across its network.

Virgin will also be able to better compete with British Airways which co-operates with ANA’s rival Japan Airlines between London and Tokyo.

Virgin president Sir Richard Branson, who unveiled the new pact as part of the airline’s 20^th anniversary of serving Japan, said the deal would enable the carrier to better penetrate the Japanese business travel market, making use of ANA’s domestic strength.

He admitted it had been difficult for Virgin to strike corporate travel deals with Japanese companies to help boost business traffic.

“We have been profitable on the route for 19 out of 20 years and this will help us in difficult times,” he said.

“It will enable us to offer a double daily service with flights at each end of the day.”

Virgin operates an Airbus A340 between Heathrow and Tokyo while ANA, Japan’s biggest airline by passengers carried, uses a 247-seat Boeing 777-300ER in a four-class configuration.

The ANA codeshare is the latest to be struck by Virgin. The carrier has recently extended a similar agreement with Bmi and has codeshares with other a number of other carriers, including 49% shareholder Singapore Airlines, Continental Airlines, South African Airways, US Airways, Virgin Blue, Air China, Air Jamaica and Jet Airways.

Sir Richard also hinted at the possibility of starting flights between Japan and Australia using Australian offshoot Virgin Blue at some point in the future.

by Phil Davies in Tokyo