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Having received interim authorisation for its alliance with Etihad Airways, Virgin Blue has lodged a number of applications with the International Air Services Commission (IASC) seeking to allow the two airlines to implement codeshares on each others’ services.
The IASC has received an application from V Australia seeking authority to allow it to codeshare on Etihad services to Abu Dhabi, Thailand, France, Greece and Bangladesh. Specifically, it seeks an allocation of daily frequencies to Bangkok, 150 seats daily to Paris, 800 seats weekly to Athens and five weekly frequencies to Bangladesh. The airline says that it expects to fully utilise the requested capacity by April 1 2011.
In addition, Pacific Blue has lodged an application seeking permission for Etihad to place its code on certain flights between Australia and Christchurch and Auckland.
Under the alliance arrangement, V Australia is planning to start three times weekly services on the Sydney-Abu Dhabi route from February 24 next year, with Brisbane-Abu Dhabi services to start the following year, with Etihad placing its code on the services. V Australia has already started taking codeshare bookings on Etihad’s services between Australia and Abu Dhabi.
