Alitalia is set to improve its presence in China thanks to a new codeshare agreement with China Southern that covers a total of 28 destinations in Italy and China.
The deal signing last night (Thursday 17 December) took place in Rome during a gala event to celebrate the Chinese airline’s recently launched new Rome-Wuhan-Guangzhou flights.
The codeshare deal will provide travellers from Italy with further opportunities to reach some of China’s biggest business cities and for Chinese tourists to visit major Italian cities.
Alitalia will place its “AZ” code on the new China Southern service and to seven more flights beyond Wuhan to the political capital Beijing, the economic capital Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenyang, Qingdao, Chengdu and Wenzhou. China Southern’s “CZ” flight code will be placed on a range of flights operated by Alitalia in Italy, in Europe and on the new Rome-Santiago service which starts next May.
China Southern has been Alitalia’s partner in the SkyTeam alliance since 2007 and it is the largest airline in Asia by the number of aircraft with more than 600.
Alitalia has codeshare agreements with three major airlines in Greater China: China Southern, China Eastern and China Airlines, all of whom are SkyTeam members and the Italian carrier also serves China in conjunction with Etihad Airways’ operated flights via Abu Dhabi to Beijing, Shanghai and Chendou.