July 5, 2004
Europe's biggest tourism company, TUI, and Air Berlin plan to work together to fill each other's planes and compete with low-cost carriers such as easyJet in Germany, TUI said on Monday.
Hapag-Lloyd Flug, TUI's biggest charter airline, and Air Berlin will carry passengers on each other's services to connect more cities in Germany to their networks and offer more frequent flights to leisure destinations including the Mediterranean and the Canary Islands.
"TUI and Air Berlin have entered into a so-called code sharing agreement", said a spokesman for TUI.
The agreement does not involve TUI's low-fare airline Hapag-Lloyd Express, which was set up two years ago to compete with no-frills carriers easyJet and Ryanair. TUI does not plan to take a stake in Air Berlin, TUI said.
EasyJet is adding services at Berlin, Cologne-Bonn and Dortmund airports this year and may add further services to win customers in Europe's biggest economy. Ryanair has had a base at Frankfurt-Hahn airport since 2002 and flies to other German airports including Hamburg-Luebeck and Niederrhein.
Air Berlin head Joachim Hunold expects the airline to carry 11.6 million passengers this year. Hapag-Lloyd Flug carried 6.7 million passengers last year.
(Reuters)
