Fiji Airways Expected to Expand Codeshare Agreement With Air India

Fiji Airways and Air India are looking to expand the codeshare agreement to capitalize on the Indian market. For Fiji, India is a valuable market with a significant tourist inflow. Currently, India ranks among the top 8-9 in terms of international source market for the island nation.

Fiji Airways & Air India Codeshare Agreement

The codeshare partnership between Air India and Fiji Airways is not new. Both airlines are partners since Air India was under the control of the government of India. In August 2019, both airlines announced the signing of a codeshare agreement. This partnership went live on September 1, 2019.

Under this codeshare partnership, Fiji Airways placed its IATA code FJ on Air India flights from three Indian cities: Delhi, Mumbai, and Chennai. Passengers can seamlessly connect to Nadi via Singapore or Hong Kong. Similarly, Air India placed its IATA Code AI on flights operated by Fiji Airways from Nadi to Hong Kong and Singapore.

Getting complicated? Let me simplify it for you. Consider Singapore and Hong Kong as intermediate points. Both airlines operate at these airports. Under the agreement, Air India was allowed to book passengers from Indian cities for Nadi. Air India would fly them from India to SIN/HKG, and from there, they can transit to Nadi onboard a Fiji Airways flight.

Same case in the opposite direction. Fiji Airways was allowed to book passengers heading from Nadi Island to India. The airline would fly the passenger to SIN/HKG, and from there, they would seamlessly transit to Indian cities onboard an Air India flight. Now, both airlines are planning to expand this partnership.

Expansion of Fiji Airways & Air India Codeshare Agreement

Air India is slowly undergoing a turnaround. Amid this, the Fijian airline is looking to expand its presence in the Indian market. Hence, both airlines are eyeing to expand the codeshare agreement.

At the Fiji Tourism Expo, the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Tourism and Civil Aviation, Viliame Gavoka highlighted the importance of the Indian market for Fiji. He said that the intention is to strengthen the connectivity between India and Fiji via Singapore. The possibility behind choosing Singapore as the main transit point is behind AI’s reduction in services from Hong Kong. Air India has reduced the number of flights to Hong Kong to just three times a week. On the other hand, it is operating 38 times a week in Singapore from Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru & Chennai.

Fiji Airways is aiming to leverage Air India’s network to penetrate deeper into the market. The airline operates three times a week between Nadi and Singapore using a mix of Airbus A330-200, A330-300, and A350-900 aircraft. Similarly, it also operates on Nadi to Hong Kong three times a week.

More Tourism Partnerships

At the Tourism Expo, Gavoka revealed that other than air connectivity, they also held talks with movie producers of Bollywood to work on their projects in Fiji. This move aims to show Fiji’s beauty as a filming destination and deepen the cultural connections between both countries.

This year, Fiji is looking to cater to 1 million visitors. The country is actively promoting the tourism industry using platforms like Times Square. The Chief Marketing & Sales Officer of Fiji Airways said that the airline has set a record milestone by catering to 2.1 million passengers in a single year. The airline recorded around 10 percent growth during the same period. All thanks to the enhanced performance of markets like Australia, New Zealand, and North America.

Conclusion

The tourism market in Fiji is growing. It is looking to source more tourists from India. To achieve this, it is looking to expand the codeshare agreement signed with Air India in 2019. The aim is to reduce the gap between both countries via Singapore. This means providing more options to passengers to travel from India to Fiji via Singapore. Fiji and its national flag carriers are actively promoting the tourism industry spending more than $32.9 million on marketing.

Have you ever traveled with Fiji Airways? How was your experience? Discuss in the comment section.