Codeshare agreement

A codeshare agreement, also known as codeshare, is a business arrangement, common in the aviation industry, in which two or more airlines publish and market the same flight under their own airline designator and flight number (the "airline flight code") as part of their published timetable or schedule. Typically, a flight is operated by one airline (technically called an "administrating carrier" or "operating carrier") while seats are sold for the flight by all cooperating airlines using their own designator and flight number.

The term "code" refers to the identifier used in a flight schedule, generally the two-character IATA airline designator code and flight number. Thus, XX224 (flight number 224 operated by the airline XX), might also be sold by airline YY as YY568 and by ZZ as ZZ9876. Airlines YY and ZZ are in this case called "marketing airlines" (sometimes abbreviated MKT CXR for "marketing carrier").

Most of the major airlines today have code sharing partnerships with other airlines, and code sharing is a key feature of the major airline alliances. Typically, code-sharing agreements are also part of the commercial agreements between airlines in the same airline alliances.

History

In 1967, Richard A. Henson’s Hagerstown Commuter airline joined with US Airways predecessor, regional Allegheny Airlines, in the nation's first codeshare relationship. The term "code sharing" or "codeshare" was coined in 1989 by Qantas and American Airlines, and in 1990 the two firms provided their first codeshare flights between an array of Australian and U.S. cities. Code sharing has become widespread in the airline industry since then, particularly in the wake of the formation of large airline alliances.