New Ai-Ia Code Sharing Pact To Pave Way For Merger

The ministry of civil aviation has unveiled a comprehensive guideline for code-sharing between Indian Airlines (IA) and Air India (AI) which is expected to pave the way for the merger of the two airlines.

A coordination committee headed by deputy secretary V K Sadhu has been assigned to monitor the implementation of the guideline. Once the norms are implemented, both the airlines will merely be a step away from merger. However, the implementation could be delayed with the airlines differing on the terms of the draft guideline circulated earlier.

According to the new norms, each of the carriers will be paid a normal interline commission of 9 per cent for the services rendered to each other. Sales generated on the operating airline shall be counted as sales performance of the non-operating partner. The ministry has identified 11 domestic stations which will carry AI flight numbers.

 

The 11 stations which have been identified are: Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Cochin, Thiruvananthapuram, Mangalore, Calicut, Madras, Calcutta, Jaipur and Varanasi.

All domestic flights of AI including domestic legs of its international flights shall carry IA flight numbers. While all AI flights identified for code-sharing will be carried in the IC computer systems under an IC flight number, IA flights will carry AI flight number.

Both the airlines have been given five months to make arrangements to load a standard reservation package to their systems to enable efficient access, reservations and passenger convenience.

Till that is done, AI and IA will provide a fixed quota of seats (block space arrangement) to each other on each flight operated by both the airlines in terms of this arrangement. The seat quota will be determined jointly by the two airlines. After the end of six months, block space arrangement will be converted to a full-fledged code-shared arrangement.

However, the airlines will continue to use their respective stock of tickets. Payment for tickets will be effected through IATA clearing house as per the existing practise of both airlines.

Both the airlines shall offer each other the most attractive fare, net of incentives to enable effective selling effort by the non-operating airline, eliminate or minimise any sale by the non-operating airline or competitors of the operating airline.

Both the airlines would be expected to ensure that capacity generation by and sale performed on the operating partners services would qualify for setting of sales targets and also be counted towards sale performance by the non-operating partner.

To improve the quality of the code-share product, schedules will be coordinated to reduce connecting times. Complimentary, efficient, assisted, inter-terminal transfers shall be arranged, including provision of transport, baggage handling and check-in assistance by the delivering partner.