New Delhi: The Lufthansa Group and Air India have expanded their codeshare partnership to include Austrian Airlines as well as additional routes on Air India, Lufthansa and Swiss airlines, Lufthansa announced Thursday (Feb 20).

The new agreement between Air India and Austrian adds codeshare routes between Vienna and 26 European destinations, including Amsterdam, Berlin, Copenhagen, Geneva, Oslo, Prague and Stockholm. The number of routes in the agreements between Air India, Lufthansa and Swiss has expanded to nearly 100 from 55, according to Lufthansa.

In total, the partnership is adding about 60 codeshare routes operated by the four airlines across 12 Indian and 26 European cities.

Lufthansa Group customers now will be able to connect on a single itinerary to Air India's domestic service to or from 15 points within India. In addition, Lufthansa carriers will add their respective codes to Air India's international services from Delhi and Mumbai to Kathmandu, Nepal, as well as Sydney and Melbourne, Australia.

Further, flights operated by Air India and Lufthansa Group carriers between India and Germany or Switzerland will be covered under the expanded partnership. Air India also will offer 26 destinations via codeshare across Europe and three destinations in the Americas beyond its gateways in Frankfurt, Vienna and Zurich. The three Americas destinations include Lufthansa flights between Frankfurt and each Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo in Brazil, and Washington, D.C.

-B