Malaysia Airlines and Alitalia signed a code-share agreement today, which will allow the two airlines to gain access into each other’s networks between Malaysia to Australia and the Southern part of Europe.

Starting 1 June 2007, Alitalia will have access to Malaysia Airlines’ seats inventory for flights between Kuala Lumpur to Rome vv as well as between Kuala Lumpur to Penang vv. and market them under its designator code ‘AZ’.

In addition, Alitalia’s customers will also be able to travel from Malaysia to Malaysia Airlines’ 3 international Australian gateways of Melbourne, Sydney and Perth. Meanwhile, Malaysia Airlines’ customers have the option of services to Italian destinations served by Alitalia from Rome and Milan as well as 5 destinations in Southern Europe, namely Barcelona, Athens, Geneva, Frankfurt and Madrid. The two airlines are also looking into enhancing the code-share agreement to enable their frequent flyer members to earn and redeem miles whilst traveling on each others flights.

Moving forward, Malaysia Airlines and Alitalia are planning to expand their network reach enabling both to gain more access to destinations in Malaysia and Italy. Malaysia Airlines Commercial Director, Dato’ Rashid Khan said, “This agreement is timely to our Key Business Activities (KBA) this year as we have launched 125 initiatives under our Customer Value Proposition that provide more quality choices for our customers as well as flexible and convenient flight scheduling. We are truly pleased to be a part of this strategic partnership as this accelerates our focus to heighten our market presence in the European key regions, through a hub-and-spoke network model. This agreement is also an extension of our government’s vision and goal to promote Malaysia in other parts of the world with the hope of bringing more tourists into Malaysia”.

Alitalia Director of Network Agreements, Mr. Aureliano Cicala said, “The agreement will integrate the collective networks in order to improve the offer to customers and to bring more traffic to Malaysia, a country that is meeting more and more the flavour of Italians.”