DUBAI, Oct. 10 (Xinhua) -- Emirates SkyCargo, the freight division of Dubai carrier Emirates Airline, said on Tuesday that it has signed a deal with Luxembourg's airline Cargolux to establish a codeshare partnership for air cargo transport.
The agreement was signed in Dubai by Emirates Divisional Senior Vice President Nabil Sultan, and Richard Forson, the president and chief executive officer of Cargolux, in the presence of Francois Bausch, Luxembourg's minister of sustainable development and infrastructure.
Earlier in the year, the two carriers started a strategic operational partnership where they work closely on a number of operational areas including block space and interline agreements, aircraft charter, hub connectivity between Dubai and Luxembourg, and cargo handling cooperation.
The partnership has been off to a successful start with Emirates SkyCargo commencing weekly freighter services to Luxembourg from June 2017 and Cargolux transferring handling for their freighter flights at Dubai World Central to Emirates SkyCargo in September 2017.
Since July 2017, Emirates SkyCargo has also chartered Boeing 747 freighter aircraft from Cargolux's fleet.
The new codeshare partnership between the two carriers is a progression of the operational partnership under which both carriers would now be able to procure cargo capacity on each other's flights and then offer it to their customers under their own airway bills and flight numbers.
The codeshare agreement will be applicable for cargo capacity on both passenger as well as freighter flights.
"Over the last five months we have achieved a number of the milestones that we targeted at the outset," said Sultan. "We will now be able to deepen this partnership through our codeshare agreement and offer a more seamless and broader range of product and service offerings to our customers."
"Our customers greatly benefit from this partnership as we can offer high-quality products and services to more destinations than ever before," Forson said.
Emirates SkyCargo connects cargo customers to more than 155 cities across 84 countries in six continents.
Luxembourg-based Cargolux has a fleet of 14 Boeing 747-8 freighters and 13 Boeing 747-400 freighters, covering over 90 destinations.
