Business

Jet Airways and American to Codeshare through JFK's T8

posted: 20 November 2007 02:27 pm ET

: As it continues to grow its transatlantic network linking Indian cities with North American destinations via a mini-hub at Brussels, Indian airline Jet Airways may introduce services to Chicago using Airbus A330-200s. With 30 business-class and 196 economy-class seats, Jet Airways' A330-200s are smaller than the 312-seat Boeing 777-300ERs with which it serves Newark, New York JFK and Toronto. Credit: Airbus S.A.S.

India's Jet Airways and American Airlines are planning to codeshare on each other's flights from mid-January, and have applied for the relevant governmental approvals.

Initially Jet Airways will place its '9W' flight code on American Airlines' flights from New York John F. Kennedy International Airport to "eight or nine" U.S. domestic destinations, said Peter Leuthi, Jet Airways' vice president - Eastern Region USA and Canada.

American Airlines will place its 'AA' flight prefix on Jet Airways' flights from JFK to three (and, in the future, four) Indian destinations and Brussels. Jet Airways operates a five-gate mini-hub at Brussels, where its flights to and from India and North America inter-connect in a four-hour period from 07:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. local time each day.

The codesharing agreement between the two airlines move follows Jet Airways' introduction of daily Boeing 777-300ER services from Delhi to New York JFK via Brussels on Oct. 28, less than three months after it began serving Newark from Mumbai via its Brussels mini-hub on Aug. 5, also with a 777-300ER.

Jet Airways' flights to JFK are handled by American Airlines at its new terminal, Terminal 8, which became fully operational and was formally opened less than a month before the Indian airline began its JFK flights.

At present Jet Airways serves three North American destinations from three Indian destinations, all via Brussels. In addition to its Mumbai-Newark and Delhi-JFK flights, the airline began service to Toronto from Chennai, formerly known as Madras, on Sep. 5.

Jet Airways has fifth-freedom traffic rights on all the routes. These rights allow it to carry passengers boarding at Brussels for North America -- and vice versa -- as well as passengers flying between Brussels and India, said Zainul Aljunied, Jet Airways' regional vice president for the USA and Canada.

Future North America route plans

The airline is planning to expand its network to North America in the near future, added Aljunied. Jet Airways plans to begin serving San Francisco from Mumbai in February eastbound via Shanghai and has all the requisite government approvals; all that it still needs to begin the flights are the requisite slots at Shanghai, he said.

In the future, Jet Airways also intends to serve Chicago and Washington, D.C. via Brussels, with Chicago being the first destination it will launch after San Francisco. Aljunied said the Chicago service may well originate at Bangalore, which "will be the next destination in India" to be added to the airline's North America-India network.

Jet Airways might operate Airbus A330-200s to Chicago rather than its larger 777-300ERs, Aljunied added. Its 777-300ERs have eight first-class suites, 30 "Premiere Class" business-class seats and 274 economy-class seats; Jet Airways' A330-200s have 196 economy-class seats and 30 Premiere-class seats, but no first-class suites.

The airline also is interested in serving Los Angeles, but like San Francisco it would be served eastbound from India, said Aljunied. He said that passenger loads on Jet Airways' routes to Newark and Toronto "are doing well," with bookings for the airline's sumptuous first-class suites "picking up" and business-class traffic "very good both ways" to and from Mumbai and Delhi.

However, Jet Airways' economy-class traffic to and from North America "is still struggling," and the airline's overall load factor on its transatlantic routes is "in the 50s," percentage-wise.

Jet Airways now serves London Heathrow four times a day from India, with a mix of Boeing 777-300ERs and Airbus A330-200s. The airline flies to various Middle East destinations, including Bahrain, Doha in Muscat, Kuwait, Qatar and several destinations in Saudi Arabia. The carrier has also served Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore for more than a year, said Aljunied.

Other international destinations that Jet Airways plans to serve include Hong Kong, Johannesburg and Nairobi, he revealed. The airline doesn’t plan to serve Australia in the near future, because it has an existing codeshare agreement with Qantas on routes through Singapore to Australia.