Cathay Pacific Airways, the Hong Kong–based airline, and the Lufthansa Group, Europe’s leading airline group, will offer their passengers selected flights under their partner’s flight number in future (codesharing), under a corresponding agreement signed by Ivan Chu, Chief Executive Cathay Pacific Airways and Carsten Spohr, Chairman of the Executive Board and CEO of Deutsche Lufthansa AG. For Lufthansa Group customers, this will significantly improve the connections available from Hong Kong towards Australia and New Zealand.
Thanks to this partnership with Cathay Pacific, Lufthansa, Swiss International Air Lines (Swiss) and Austrian Airlines (Austrian) will be able to offer their passengers four new destinations in Australia and New Zealand as connecting flights via Hong Kong, from 26 April 2017.
Passengers arriving in Hong Kong from Frankfurt, Munich, Vienna and Zurich will then be able to seamlessly transfer to selected Cathay Pacific connections and with just one booking. Furthermore, passengers can check their baggage through to their final destination on any route of Cathay and collect miles on the respective code-share flight segments.
The new destinations via Hong Kong are as follows (by Lufthansa, Swiss and Austrian via Hong Kong to): Sydney, Melbourne, Cairns and Auckland. In turn, Cathay Pacific passengers can reach under Cathay Pacific flight numbers fourteen different European Lufthansa, Swiss and Austrian destinations with their ticket, thereby expanding their options for the existing Cathay Pacific flights to Frankfurt, Dusseldorf and Zurich.
Ivan Chu, Chief Executive Officer Cathay Pacific Airways, said: “This new codeshare agreement will offer Cathay Pacific passengers enhanced connectivity to destinations in continental Europe through flights operated by Lufthansa, Swiss and Austrian Airlines via our gateways in Frankfurt, Dusseldorf and Zurich. At the same time, Lufthansa Group customers traveling from Europe to Southwest Pacific will have easier access to flights to Australia and New Zealand through our super hub in Hong Kong.”
Carsten Spohr, Chairman of the Executive Board and CEO of the Lufthansa Group, said: “Cathay Pacific Airways and the Lufthansa Group, two of the world’s leading aviation groups, are forming a ground-breaking partnership. I am particularly pleased because it strengthens our global network of strategic partnerships and further improves our airlines’ offering on Asian routes in the interest of our passengers. The codeshare and frequent flyer agreement between Lufthansa, Austrian Airlines, Swiss International Air Lines and Cathay Pacific Airways brings advantages for the passengers of all the partners, because the airlines’ route networks complement each other perfectly. Cooperation with Cathay Pacific is another key building block in our Asia strategy and supplements existing commercial joint ventures with All Nippon Airways, Singapore Airlines and Air China and other Star Alliance partners in Asia.”
The Cathay Pacific Cargo and Lufthansa Cargo air freight subsidiaries signed a cooperation agreement back in May 2016 and, since February 2017, have been jointly marketing their capacities on flights between Hong Kong and Europe. Cathay Pacific Cargo has also taken over Lufthansa Cargo’s airfreight handling operations in Hong Kong and Lufthansa those of Cathay Pacific in Frankfurt. Joint shipments from Europe to Hong Kong are planned from 2018.