Brussels Airlines and Thai Airways announced an increase in their ‘codeshare’ arrangement that will increase the relationship between the 2 airlines. In a ceremony held at the Regis Hotel in Bangkok, dignitaries from both Belgium and Thailand were on hand to celebrate the announcement.
The crux of the announcement deals with Thai Airways increasing service and capacity between Brussels Airport and Suvarnabhumi Airport. This builds on a codeshare arrangement that was initiated in July 2012 by the airlines. According to Thai, they have seen an increase in demand for service between Bangkok and Brussels which led to the decision to increase the codeshare arrangement.
This works out very well for the 2 Star Alliance member airlines. Brussels Airlines will see an increase in passenger traffic coming from Thailand that will use Brussels flights for onward connections within Europe and Thai will be able to capture more of the European market that travels to Asia.
For those of you not familiar with what a ‘codeshare’ is, it is simply an ability for one airline to book its passengers for travel on other airlines as part of a travel itinerary. For example, if someone wants to fly on Brussels from New York to Thailand, Brussels Airlines can sell a passenger a single ticket that has them flying from New York to Brussels on Brussels Airlines, and then connect to a Thai flight from Brussels to Thailand. Another way to look at codeshares is the ability for one airline to sell tickets for flights that will be operated by other airlines. Without a codeshare agreement, the passenger would generally need to buy separate tickets from each airline. Codeshares are prevalent throughout the airline industry and have made travel planning very easy for airlines and passengers.
