28
November
2016
|
11:00
Europe/Amsterdam

KLM and CHINA AIRLINES expand cooperation

Summary

KLM Royal Dutch Airlines and China Airlines of Taiwan will expand cooperation effective 2017. From 9 January, China Airlines will begin operating four weekly direct services between Taipei and Amsterdam with a new Airbus A350, on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays. KLM already operates daily, direct, Boeing 777 service between Amsterdam and Taipei, with a tail-end service to Manila, Philippines.

The two airlines have agreed to sell tickets on each other’s flights between Amsterdam and Taipei via code-sharing and block-space agreements, with each getting a set number of seats to sell on each other’s Amsterdam-Taipei-Amsterdam services, using their own flight number. This will enable China Airlines to offer its passengers daily service between Taipei and Amsterdam, and will allow KLM to offer 11 weekly roundtrips on this route.

This intensification of cooperation means KLM now offers direct service to eight destinations, with 67 weekly flights between Amsterdam and Greater China, in cooperation with its SkyTeam partner China Airlines as well as its partners in Mainland China, further strengthening Amsterdam’s status as a gateway for passengers from greater China. 
Pieter Elbers - KLM President & CEO

The two airlines also agreed to further expand their code-sharing programme beyond their hubs. In addition to existing code-sharing between Taipei and Okinawa, Fukuoka and Singapore-Kaohsiung, KLM will also begin code-sharing on the following routes from 9 January: Taipei-Busan, Taipei-Kaohsiung, Taipei-Nagoya, Taipei-Shizuoka, Taipei-Miyazaki, and Taipei-Takamatsu.

From 9 January 2017, China Airlines will attach its code to KLM’s services between Amsterdam and Paris, Barcelona and Madrid, in addition to the existing codeshares on the Amsterdam-London and Amsterdam-Manchester routes.