Date:11/08/2004 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2004/08/11/stories/2004081103841400.htm

Business

Air India, Lufthansa join hands

By Our Special Correspondent

MUMBAI, AUG. 10. Air India and Lufthansa today signed a strategic alliance agreement for expansion of flights between Germany and India. All flights between the two countries will be operated by the two airlines in future in code-sharing and new routes will be added.

Further, through the cooperation in the area of frequent flyer programmes, customers on flights of both airlines can in future collect and redeem miles for the respective programmes — Miles & More and Flying Returns.

"India is an important market with great potential. Lufthansa is today already the European airline with the largest offer of services to India for its customers,'' said Wolfgang Mayrhuber, Chairman, Deutsche Lufthansa AG.

V. Thulasidas, Chairman and Managing Director, Air-India, announced that Air-India had been accorded the IOSA Audit Certificate by IATA recently and is among the first airlines conforming to the required quality standards. He also said India-Germany/Europe and India-U.S. were important markets for Air-India which it plans to serve over Frankfurt in alliance with Lufthansa.