New Delhi, 17 February 2020: Vistara, India’s finest full-service carrier and United Airlines, one of world’s largest carriers, have implemented the codeshare agreement signed in June 2019, with effect from 14 February 2020. The agreement enables United Airlines to codeshare on Vistara-operated Indian domestic flights starting 28 February 2020. Passengers on both airlines have been enjoying the ability to earn and redeem frequent flyer points/miles on either of the frequent flyer programs since the beginning of February.
Vistara’s Chief Commercial Officer, Vinod Kannan said, “Vistara today connects the length and breadth of India, and we are delighted to offer the country’s only five-star flying experience to customers of United on their Indian domestic flights. The U.S. continues to be one of the biggest source markets for foreign travellers into India and the region, and this partnership allows us to provide a seamless travel offering for customers to and from the U.S.”
The codeshare agreement enables United Airlines to put its ‘UA’ designator code on 68 Vistara-operated flights to 26 destinations every day, including but not limited to Ahmedabad, Amritsar, Bengaluru, Bhubaneswar, Chandigarh, Chennai, Goa, Hyderabad, Jodhpur, Kolkata, Lucknow, Pune, Raipur, Ranchi, Srinagar, Thiruvananthapuram, Udaipur, and Varanasi.
Since 1 February 2020, members of Vistara’s and United’s frequent flyer programmes, Club Vistara and United MileagePlus, have been able to earn and redeem their CV Points/United MileagePlus miles when flying on either of the airlines’ network. This means Club Vistara members can now earn and redeem CV Points on flights operated by United Airlines, and vice versa.
“We are excited to offer our shared customers the option of building a seamless itinerary when planning travel to cities beyond New Delhi and Mumbai,” said John Gebo, United’s senior vice president of Alliances. “United has connected customers to India for more than 15 years with daily flights between New York/Newark and Delhi and Mumbai and our new service between San Francisco and New Delhi. Our relationship with Vistara opens up even more options for customers to travel between our East and West Coast hubs and multiple destinations throughout India.”
As India’s highest-rated airline on Skytrax and TripAdvisor, winner of several ‘Best Airline’ awards, and the only 5-star rated airline in India (Apex 2020), Vistara has consistently raised the bar for operations and service delivery in the Indian aviation industry in a short span of five years. The airline is poised to grow its fleet by adding more than 40 narrow-body and wide-body aircraft, including Airbus A321neo and Boeing B787-9, in the next three years.
