British Airways finalizes JV with China Southern

British Airways (BA) and China Southern Airlines inked a joint venture (JV) agreement on Dec 17 at Daxing Airport, finalizing an MOU signed in January 2019 to expand each other’s network and implement reciprocal frequent flyer benefits.

As of Jan. 2, 2020, both airlines are codesharing on all 31 flights between London and Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Sanya, Wuhan and Zhengzhou. Passengers will also be able to book connecting domestic flights under the same itinerary, such as London to Edinburgh, Newcastle and Glasgow on BA, and Shanghai to Shenyang, Changchun and Harbin on China Southern. Both airlines started the codeshare agreement in 2017 on ten routes.

The agreement also covers the usage of lounge, booking of flights on both airlines’ websites and applications as well as collection of frequent flyer points. China Southern officially left SkyTeam at the turn of the year and is actively pursuing joint ventures with airlines across other alliances, such as Finnair and American Airlines.

BA was the first international carrier to move all of its operations to the new Beijing Daxing International Airport, and is expected to enhance connectivity with China Southern’s operations there, which has also adopted a dual hub concept in Guangzhou and Daxing. (By Chen Chuanren)