Jet Airways is in talks with Chinese carriers for code-sharing deals to other destinations after it became the first Indian private air carrier to operate a service to China by launching its Mumbai-Shanghai-San Francisco flight.
The flight connecting the economic hubs of India and China was formally launched in Shanghai on Monday.
"We are in talks with all the three major Chinese carriers and they are at various stages of progress," Sudheer Raghavan, Chief Commercial Officer of Jet Airways, told reporters after the launch function.
"We have initiated discussions and we hope to excite their interest in code sharing activities between India and China and San Francisco if the opportunities arise and if we get provision from all the three countries."
He said discussions were underway with Air China, China Eastern and Shanghai Airlines. Asked about San Francisco, he said, "All these are on the table for discussion".
The new route on Jet's international network is also the fourth long-haul flight started by it to North America.
However, he said keeping in mind the soaring oil prices, the airline would consolidate its international operations till 2009-end barring the launch of its flights to Dubai.
"What we are going to do now is after this, we will probably open up Mumbai-Dubai the moment we get the rights. Apart from that, we are going to consolidate our international operations after we get a fresh batch of wide-bodied aircraft in late 2009. Then, we will resume further growth of international operations".
Raghavan said Shanghai was the airline's 18th destination and San Francisco the 19th. The number of international destinations rose by nine in the past seven months, a pace of expansion he described as "very rapid".
Speaking at the function, he said the new flight had connected two rapidly growing economies to San Francisco in the US, where many Fortune 500 companies were located.
Indian and Chinese IT professionals work in Silicon Valley and the new flight links three "future world top cities," he said.
Consul General of India in Shanghai, Vishnu Prakash, welcomed the introduction of the flight, noting that it connects the commercial capitals of India and China and comes at a time when "relations between the two countries have never been better".
Observing that economic ties and people-to-people contact were the two pillars of multi-faceted relationship being forged between China and India, he said the bilateral trade had grown 70 per cent in the first five months of this year, touching USD 26 billion and is expected to reach USD 50 billion by the end of 2008.
Prakash also spoke of efforts to forge cooperative partnership between the institutes of higher learning of the two countries, adding, management, medicine, IT, English and Chinese language studies had been identified as potential areas for it.
Jet Airways has deployed brand new Boeing 777-300ER aircraft with a three-class configuration -- First Class, Premiere and Economy -- on its new Mumbai-Shanghai-San Francisco flight.
