Air-India on Tuesday signed a strategic alliance with German airlines Lufthansa to increase the number of flights between the two countries.
All flights between India and Germany would now be operated by both the airlines on a code-sharing basis and new routes would be added accordingly, the companies announced in a joint press conference in Mumbai.
Customers of both the airlines can collect and redeem miles of the companies' respective programmes, 'Miles and More' of Lufthansa and 'Flying Returns' of Air-India, they said.
Air-India would soon link Bangalore and Hyderabad directly to Frankfurt and enhance Deutsche Frankfurt operations on a daily basis to US and West Coast, they said.
The agreement was signed by chairman and managing director of Air-India V Thulasidas and chairman (executive board) of Deutsche Lufthansa Wolfgang Mayrhuber.