Cathay Pacific Airways and the Lufthansa Group will offer their passengers selected flights under a new code-sharing deal.

For Lufthansa Group customers, this will significantly improve the connections available from Hong Kong towards Australia and New Zealand.

A corresponding agreement was signed today by Ivan Chu, chief executive Cathay Pacific Airways and Carsten Spohr, chairman of the executive board at Deutsche Lufthansa AG.

Due to this partnership with Cathay Pacific, Lufthansa, Swiss International Air Lines and Austrian Airlines will be able to offer their passengers four new destinations in Australia and New Zealand as connecting flights via Hong Kong, from April 26th.

Passengers arriving in Hong Kong from Frankfurt, Munich, Vienna and Zurich will be able to seamlessly transfer to selected Cathay Pacific connections with only one booking.

Furthermore, passengers can check their baggage through to their final destination on any route of Cathay and collect miles on the respective code-share flight segments.

In turn, Cathay Pacific passengers, under Cathay Pacific flight numbers, can reach fourteen different European Lufthansa, SWISS and Austrian destinations with their ticket, thereby expanding their options for the existing Cathay Pacific flights to Frankfurt, Dusseldorf and Zurich.

Chu said: “This new codeshare agreement will offer Cathay Pacific passengers enhanced connectivity to destinations in continental Europe through flights operated by Lufthansa, SWISS and Austrian Airlines via our gateways in Frankfurt, Dusseldorf and Zurich.

“At the same time, Lufthansa Group customers traveling from Europe to Southwest Pacific will have easier access to flights to Australia and New Zealand through our super hub in Hong Kong.”

The Cathay Pacific Cargo and Lufthansa Cargo airfreight subsidiaries signed a cooperation agreement back in May 2016 and, since February 2017, have been jointly marketing their capacities on flights between Hong Kong and Europe.

Cathay Pacific Cargo has also taken over Lufthansa Cargo’s airfreight handling operations in Hong Kong and Lufthansa those of Cathay Pacific in Frankfurt.

Joint shipments from Europe to Hong Kong are planned from 2018.

Spohr added: “Cathay Pacific Airways and the Lufthansa Group, two of the world’s leading aviation groups, are forming a ground-breaking partnership.

“I am particularly pleased because it strengthens our global network of strategic partnerships and further improves our airlines’ offering on Asian routes in the interest of our passengers.”