Summary
- Emirates and ITA Airways signed a MoU for a brand new codeshare agreement, expanding connections between Dubai and European destinations like Italy.
- Passengers can enjoy enhanced advantages with reciprocal loyalty programs in the long run through the partnership between Emirates and ITA Airways.
- While Emirates’ latest codeshare could possibly be its thirtieth, ITA Airways looks to expand its international reach, including to Australia and other parts of Asia.
Emirates and ITA signed a memorandum of understanding today to start a codeshare partnership between the 2 carriers. The codeshare is ready to develop into the thirtieth for Emirates and the thirty fifth for ITA Airways.
In an announcement, Emirates says that the MoU will begin the establishment of a strengthened partnership between the airlines, allowing greater connections between its hub at Dubai International Airport (DXB) and Europe. The brand new partnership opened up codeshare flights to Italian destinations, including Florence (FLR), Genoa (GOA), Palermo (PMO), and Trieste (TRS), amongst others across Europe not served by Emirates.
For any passengers seeking to benefit from the codeshare agreement, Emirates has flown to destinations in Italy since 1997, operating 41 weekly flights to 4 destinations. For its services to Italy, Emirates uses the A380 to Rome Fiumicino (FCO), with the 777-300ER operating services to Bologna (BLQ), Milan (MXP), and Venice (VCE).
Photo: Andrew Crider | Easy Flying
Meanwhile, the ITA Airways fleet includes each A220 and A320 family aircraft, together with widebodies consisting of A330s and A350XWBs. The MoU also seeks to ascertain extending reciprocal loyalty advantages on each airlines’ frequent flyer programs at a later stage, based on an announcement from the airlines.
“This MoU further enhances ITA Airways’ business strategy of growth and opens up a privileged access path to all passengers who will profit from the connectivity via Rome Fiumicino and Dubai,” Antonino Turicchi, Chairman of ITA Airways, said in an announcement.
For ITA Airways, the partnership will expand international destinations, including service to Australia and other destinations in Asia not already served by the airline. ITA itself was already capable of connect its passengers down under through a codeshare agreement with the United Arab Emirates’ other flag carrier, Etihad. Each Etihad and Emirates serve Sydney (SYD), Melbourne (MEL), and Brisbane (BNE), while Emirates adds Perth (PER), with service to Adelaide (ADL) resuming in October.
For perspective, when comparing ITA Airways’ codeshare with Etihad, which was announced in 2021, and Emirates’ latest codeshare announced today, The flight between FCO and DXB is advertised to take 25 minutes less time for Emirates onboard the A380, versus FCO-Abu Dhabi Zayed International Airport (AUH) onboard the 777-300ER and 787-9 Etihad uses for that route. The FCO-DXB flight is 2348 nautical miles, whereas the flight to AUH is 2346 nautical miles direct.
While this MOU could begin Emirates’ thirtieth codeshare agreement, this could be the third codeshare for Europe. That is compared to other Middle Eastern carriers like Qatar Airways, which operates as many as eight each day passenger flights to London Heathrow (LHR). Qatar has partnerships with nine European airlines, in addition to railway networks. Etihad, for its part, has codeshare agreements with five Europe-based airlines.
The MoU is currently pending government approval. Nonetheless, each the UAE and the Italian governments maintain ownership of Emirates and ITA Airways, respectively.
For its part, Skyteam member ITA Airways was launched in 2020 after multiple failed attempts to avoid wasting the previous Italian flag carrier Alitalia from bankruptcy. ITA Airways inherited much from Alitalia, including most of its fleet. For a time frame, the UAE-flag carrier Etihad Airways was a serious investor in Alitalia between 2015 and 2017 before the Italian government took ownership of Alitalia. Currently, German flag carrier Lufthansa is in dispute with the European Union regarding purchasing the airline.