Air Malta joins force with Belgian carrier

Air Malta and SN Brussels Airlines yesterday announced a code sharing agreement through which the Belgian airline will place its SN code on all flights operated by the Maltese national carrier between the two destinations.

The agreement was signed by Dominic Attard, Air Malta's chief officer for strategic planning, and SN Brussels Airlines' vice-president Geert Sciot.

Through such an agreement an airline sells seats on its partner's flights as if they were its own. It allows airlines to increase their number of seats available without having to resort to additional flights.

This is not the first time that Air Malta and SN Brussels Airlines have cooperated. In fact, SN has provided maintenance services to Air Malta while the latter has trained SN Brussels technicians on Airbus aircraft.

Mr Sciot said SN Brussels Airlines, whose main objective was to connect the European capital with EU member states and other main regions, was experiencing an increase in its markets following EU enlargement.

Mr Sciot said that as soon as Malta joined the EU, SN Airlines carried out an analysis of the market and found it had to choose from two options, either to fly its aircraft to Malta or to enter into a partnership. "We opted wisely for the second," he said.

"We share some values with Air Malta, like a good in-flight service which is of a premium quality, punctuality, friendliness, reliability and efficiency," he added.

Mr Attard said Air Malta had other code share agreements with Alitalia, which was suspended on Monday to be resumed next summer, with Olympic Airways and with CSA Czech Airlines.

Air Malta, he added, was also in an advanced stage of negotiations with three other airlines to reach such agreements.

Thanks to the code sharing agreement with SN, the Air Malta/SN Brussels airlines' four weekly flights into Brussels will be able to connect with SN's direct service to Bristol, Budapest, Geneva, Manchester, Marseilles, Newcastle, Toulouse and Strasbourg.

On the other hand, SN flights from Berlin, Birmingham, Bristol, Budapest, Geneva, Gothenburg, Hamburg, London Gatwick, Lyon, Manchester, Newcastle, Oslo, Prague, Strasbourg and Toulouse also connect with Air Malta's flights to Malta.

As from next summer, the Malta-Brussels route will be upgraded to a daily flight.

SN Brussels Airlines, which has a 40 per cent market share in Brussels, was set up in February 2002 after the Belgian airline Sabena went bankrupt in the previous year. It operates more than 280 regular flights a day.