Singapore Airlines and Garuda Indonesia signed an agreement this past week to deepen their commercial partnership and explore revenue-sharing agreements for flights between Singapore and Indonesia.
The deepening partnership also would mean reciprocal elite member benefits (Singapore Airlines is in Star Alliance, while Garuda Indonesia is a SkyTeam member airline).
You can access Singapore Airlines here and Garuda Indonesia here.
Here’s the Announcement:
Garuda Indonesia And Singapore Airlines Strengthen Commercial Partnership
Joint News Release with Garuda Indonesia
20 May 2024 – Garuda Indonesia (GA) and Singapore Airlines (SIA) today committed to deepen their commercial partnership, with the aim of offering reciprocal benefits for their frequent flyer programme members, and to explore revenue sharing arrangements for flights between Indonesia and Singapore, subject to regulatory approvals.
The frequent flyer programme agreement was inked by Garuda Indonesia Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Mr Irfan Setiaputra and SIA CEO Mr Goh Choon Phong in Jakarta today, while the joint venture revenue share agreement was signed by Garuda Indonesia Director of Service and Commercial Mr Ade R. Susardi and SIA Chief Commercial Officer Mr Lee Lik Hsin.
When launched, the frequent flyer partnership will allow GarudaMiles and KrisFlyer members to earn and redeem miles on codeshare flights operated by both airlines. The revenue sharing agreement, when implemented, will support joint capacity growth, marking a significant step in the plans for a proposed commercial joint venture arrangement that covers Garuda Indonesia and Singapore Airlines flights between Singapore and Indonesia.
Both carriers are continuing with joint marketing activities to promote tourism. This potentially includes joint activities to promote tourist traffic to Indonesia, including familiarisation trips for travel trade and media.
Singapore Airlines and Garuda Indonesia have a strong codeshare partnership that has expanded in recent months. Today, Garuda Indonesia codeshares on Singapore Airlines flights between Singapore and the Indonesian cities of Bali, Jakarta, Medan, and Surabaya, as well as long-haul routes between Singapore and Johannesburg, London (Heathrow), and Mumbai. SIA codeshares on Garuda Indonesia flights between Singapore and Bali, Jakarta, and Surabaya.
Mr Irfan Setiaputra, President and CEO of Garuda Indonesia said that this partnership is part of Garuda Indonesia’s efforts to improve the Company’s performance through a strategic commercial partnership, especially in providing added value to customers. “Having the same mission in optimising the potential of the aviation business ecosystem in South East Asia after the pandemic, this initiative is certainly an important manifestation of both airlines’ commitment to continue strengthening our well-established cooperation,” Mr Irfan explained.
He added: “This partnership is a special moment for us, which also marks the 58 years of Garuda Indonesia’s journey in connecting Indonesia and Singapore. In the future, we hope that this partnership will continue to enhance social, cultural, and tourism relations between Indonesia and Singapore whilst offering seamless access for customers to enjoy various destinations served by both airlines.”
“We hope that the expansion of this partnership will bring added value for Singapore and Indonesia, which are served by both airlines. Furthermore, this collaboration is also expected to not only provide added value for both airlines’ customers, especially through the ease of earning and redeeming miles for tickets and other exclusive benefits, but the hope is that it will strengthen Garuda Indonesia’s support for national tourism by providing more access to points in Indonesia for foreign tourists who will visit Indonesia via Singapore in the future,” Mr Irfan said.
Mr Goh Choon Phong, Chief Executive Officer, Singapore Airlines, said: “Our win-win partnership with Garuda Indonesia will improve the connectivity between Indonesia and Singapore for our customers. This will help to meet the increasing demand for air travel between the two countries and beyond, as well as facilitate the growth of tourism and economic activities. Furthermore, by deepening the synergies between our frequent flyer programmes, we can enhance the benefits for our loyal customers, offering them more opportunities to earn and redeem miles when travelling with both airlines.”
Conclusion
This partnership seems to offer limited benefits for elite members from both airlines if earning and redeeming are enabled only for the codeshare flights and not all the flights operated by these two airlines.
You could also argue that deepening cooperation between these two airlines will raise fares for those traveling to/from Indonesia, as these airlines will fix capacity and fares.
Source
