China Southern Airlines, the largest airline in the People’s Republic of China, announced an expansion of its codeshare cooperation with Aeroflot.
Starting this month, Aeroflot will place its SU code on China Southern Airlines flights between Guangzhou and Moscow as well as its Guangzhou – Wuhan – Moscow service.
China Southern and Aeroflot code share cooperation originated in 2007 and with this new arrangement in place both SkyTeam affiliated airlines will provide more convenient travel services to passengers travelling between China and Russia.
According to the Russia Tourism Administration, from the first quarter of 2014, China became the biggest outbound tourism market to Russia.
In 2015, approximately 67,000 Chinese passengers travelled to Russia, an increase of 67% compared with the previous year. Considering this huge market growth potential, China Southern launched several scheduled flights between China and Russia, including Guangzhou to Moscow and Urumqi to St. Petersburg.
China Southern Airlines is headquartered in Baiyun District, Guangzhou. It is the world’s sixth-largest airline measured by passengers carried and Asia’s largest airline in fleet size, revenue and passengers carried. It is the fourth-largest airline in the world in domestic passenger traffic and the sixth-largest in scheduled domestic passenger-kilometres flown. From its main hubs at Beijing Capital International Airport and Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport, the airline flies to 193 destinations using a fleet of more than 500 aircraft.
Aeroflot is the flag carrier and largest airline of the Russian Federation. The carrier operates domestic and international passenger and services, mainly from its hub at Sheremetyevo International Airport.