Finnair and the Chinese airline Juneyao Air have signed a joint-venture agreement to deepen the airline’s commercial relationship on the Helsinki-Shanghai route and network points beyond, media FlightGlobal reports.
Both carriers operate the Helsinki-Shanghai route and under the agreement, customers will benefit from flexible routing options as well as enhanced benefits for frequent flyer members.
About the agreement, Juneyao Air chief executive Zhao Hongliang says, “The joint business with Finnair will allow Juneyao Air to further strengthen its market in Europe, which is an important strategy in our global expansion.”
When the two parties last year in April signed a letter of intent to create the joint business, Finnair stated that the tie-up would “enable significant further expansion of code sharing across the networks of both partners, particularly to key points beyond Shanghai Pudong and Helsinki”.
Speaking of the joint venture last year, Finnair chief executive Topi Manner said to FlightGlobal, “The philosophy behind the JV and that letter of intent that we announced in April is that even during times like this when we need to play the short game to survive, we still need to keep focusing on the long-term goals as well. And one of our long-term goals is that we really want to improve our presence and foothold in Asian markets, and China definitely goes into that one.“
In addition to Finnair’s new joint venture, the carrier also has a codeshare relationship with China Southern Airlines.
