Air India in code sharing arrangement with BMI

Mumbai: With a view to tap the large European market, flag carrier Air India has signed a code sharing pact with UK airline BMI (British Midland International), the second largest operator at London's Heathrow airport. AI is expected to roll-out code sharing facilities this month, airline sources said.

Air India currently has code share arrangement with as many as 10 airlines around the globe.

Airline sources confirmed the signing of the agreement with BMI, but said a few nitty-gritties still needed to be sorted out. They were confident that code-share would be rolled out sometime this month. They also said that the airline was exploring similar arrangements with a few other airlines.

Code-sharing allows an airline to book its passengers on its partner carriers and provide seamless transport to multiple destinations where it has no presence.

A StarAlliance member, BMI operates services to 40 destinations. Air India is in the process of joining the Star Alliance, an elite club of 27 global airlines, by June.

The alliance would enable the airline to automatically get connected these member-operators.