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By Jann Bettinga
04 June, 2007
June 3 (Bloomberg) -- Deutsche Lufthansa AG, Europe's second-biggest airline, and African carrier Ethiopian Airlines agreed to sell seats on each other's flights to expand their networks.
The companies signed a so-called code-sharing agreement today at the sidelines of an aviation conference in Vancouver. The accord will take effect by mid-year, Lufthansa Chief Executive Officer Wolfgang Mayrhuber said.
Lufthansa cooperates in the region with South African Airways, Africa's biggest carrier, through the Star Alliance group of airlines. Cologne, Germany-based Lufthansa is a founding member of the alliance, which added South African in April 2006 as the first African carrier.
Ethiopian, based in Addis Ababa, is considering joining either the Star Alliance or rival grouping oneworld, CEO Girma Wake said.
Ethiopian serves four continents and African cities including Lagos, Accra and Dakar, according to the company's Web site. The carrier already has an agreement with South African to sell seats on each other's flights.
Lufthansa signed similar sales agreements last month with Brazil's TAM SA and El Salvador's Taca International Airlines to expand its flight network in the Americas.
Lufthansa's traffic, measured as the number of passengers multiplied by the distance flown, to the Middle East and Africa rose 6.4 percent in the first four months of the year. It flew 664,000 passengers to the region, an increase of 6.4 percent compared with a year earlier.
To contact the reporter on this story: Jann Bettinga in Vancouver via jbettinga@bloomberg.net.