China Southern Airlines and KLM to expand codeshare

China Southern Airlines and KLM Royal Dutch Airlines are to expand their current European/Sino code share service to five of China Southern's leading domestic destinations, starting Sunday, October 26, 2003.

"We highly value our friendship and business partnership with KLM and the expansion of our codeshare agreement will provide all new destinations in China for KLM passengers," said Mr. Wang Changshun, President, China Southern Airlines.

This is the first "beyond" extension of any codeshare agreement for China Southern Airlines, which also offers International codeshare service with Delta Air Lines, Garuda Indonesia, Japan Airlines and Vietnam Airlines.

Mr. Wang explained that with the expansion of this codeshare agreement, KLM will be offering five new Chinese destinations - Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Wuhan, Changsha, and Guilin - in its coming winter schedule.

The codeshare flights to and from these destinations will connect with KLM/China Southern codeshare flights to/from Beijing and Shanghai, to and from Amsterdam.

The five new destinations will take on KLM flight numbers on October 26, 2003. China Southern will re-launch its European gateway with service each Tuesday and Friday from Amsterdam Airport Schiphol to Beijing, China with continuing service to Guangzhou, China, starting Friday, August 1.

The sharp drop in demand caused by the SARS virus resulted in a dramatic decrease in flight frequencies. As a result, KLM had to provide combined service to Beijing and Shanghai for a time. However with China Southern's August 1st return to Europe, KLM will start flying three weekly roundtrips to Beijing and four to Shanghai. As of that date, both destinations will be nonstop and served separately. Also on that date, China Southern will resume its flights to Amsterdam with two roundtrips from Guangzhou via Beijing.

In this way, KLM and China Southern will provide five codeshare services collectively between Amsterdam and Beijing and four between Amsterdam and Shanghai. KLM passengers may also earn & redeem frequent flyer mileage in KLM's Flying Dutchman program as well as airport lounge access (where available). China Southern Airlines' Sky Pearl Club members may also earn and redeem miles on these codeshare flights. The Sky Pearl Club is China's largest FFP with more than 2 Million members.