What does codeshare mean?

Codesharing is a well-established and widely used practice in the airline industry. In simple terms, it means that a flight physically operated by one airline — known as the operating carrier — also carries the flight codes of one or more other airlines, known as marketing carriers, who sell seats on that same flight under their own brand.

What does each party gain?

• The operating carrier benefits from broader distribution of its product, as it can now be sold through the marketing carrier's channels in addition to its own.
• The marketing carrier is able to offer more destinations, connections, and services on a given city pair without having to physically operate additional flights.

A real-world example

United Airlines and All Nippon Airways (ANA) have a bilateral codeshare agreement that allows both Star Alliance carriers to offer a greater number of flights under their own code between the United States and Japan. Crucially, it also enables a much wider range of onward connections beyond each airline's gateway cities on both sides of the Pacific — a significant benefit for passengers travelling beyond the main hub airports.

If this article does not answer your question or resolve your issue, you can always submit a ticket and our Customer Support team will get back to you as soon as possible.