Delta, Virgin Australia Begin Sale of Trans-Pacific Codeshare Tickets

Delta Air Lines and Virgin Australia today begin the sale of codeshare tickets for travel effective 6 November 2011.

Delta will add its code to all flights between Los Angeles and the Australian cities Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, operated by V Australia, Virgin Australia's long-haul international carrier.

V Australia will add its code to Delta's service between Los Angeles and Sydney.

For customers, the expanded codesharing means more options when booking trans-Pacific travel on Delta or V Australia, as well as benefits such as accrual of frequent flier miles and premium lounge access regardless of which airline operates the flight.

To further improve the customer experience, from November, flights operated by V Australia will arrive at Delta's Terminal 5 at Los Angeles International Airport.

"The start of trans-Pacific codesharing and arrival co-location at T5 in Los Angeles mark the first major steps toward establishing our joint venture, which will provide significant benefits for our customers," said Charlie Pappas, Delta's vice president – Alliances. "Together, Delta and Virgin Australia will offer a leading network and a superior travel experience for our customers flying between the U.S. and Australia."

Virgin Australia Group Executive, Ms. Merren McArthur, added, "The joint venture will allow us to offer more choice and a more seamless travel experience from November, providing guests with three trans-Pacific services per day and allowing us to spread our respective departure times out of Sydney to improve connections ... The next milestone will be the expansion of the existing domestic codeshare on each airline's domestic network, further improving connectivity of our services and giving Virgin Australia guests access to 250 destinations across the United States, Canada and Mexico."

The trans-Pacific codesharing agreement is the latest expansion of the partnership between the two airlines. In May, Delta and Virgin Australia announced an enhanced codeshare that added Delta's code to Virgin Australia flights to five destinations in Australia, and added Virgin Australia's code on Delta service to four new cities in the United States.

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