Air Seychelles and Alitalia offer more travel options from Italy to Seychelles

 Alitalia, Italy’s leading carrier, and Air Seychelles, the national airline of the Republic of Seychelles, have enhanced their codeshare agreement to provide Italian air travellers with unprecedented access to Seychelles.

Beginning December 19, Alitalia will place its “AZ” flight code on three weekly flights operated by Air Seychelles between Paris Charles de Gaulle and Seychelles.

Alitalia had already codeshare on the island carrier’s daily service between Abu Dhabi and Seychelles, as well as on multiple flights per day between Mahé and Praslin, the two largest islands in the archipelago.

Air Seychelles has placed its “HM” flight code on Alitalia’s daily domestic services between Rome and Bologna, Florence, Genoa, Milan Malpensa, Palermo and Turin, and on the Alitalia operated international daily services from Abu Dhabi to Milan and Venice, in addition to already codesharing on the daily Abu Dhabi-Rome route.

John Shepley, Chief Strategy and Planning Officer at Alitalia, said: “We are excited to strengthen our codeshare agreement with Air Seychelles to provide travellers from Italy with more choice and convenience when flying to the beautiful Seychelles islands. The enhancement of the agreement with Air Seychelles will considerably strengthen the Alitalia presence on the Indian Ocean area and, at the same time, will make Italy more accessible to Air Seychelles’ passengers, who can now take advantage of easy connections beyond Rome to further new six iconic Italian cities. Thanks to the expanded code share agreement, Alitalia will witness new traffic flows to the Seychelles, making these islands even easier to reach by Italian travellers as well as a further increasingly popular destination to the Italian market”.

Roy Kinnear, Chief Executive Officer of Air Seychelles, said: “We are delighted to expand our codeshare agreement with Alitalia to offer our guests convenient new travel options between eight major cities in Italy and Seychelles. Through this development our network reach has widened to cover some of Italy’s most important centres of art, history and architecture, such as Palermo, the famous capital of Sicily. Italy is the third largest source market for Seychelles. More than 18,000 travellers from Italy have visited our shores so far this year and with more choice and connectivity, we are confident that this number will continue to grow, allowing more people to explore our beautiful islands and stimulating the tourism sector of Seychelles. Since it was first signed just over one year ago, our codeshare agreement with Alitalia has produced great results, showing that holidaymakers and business travellers in Italy and beyond find our combined flights a very attractive travelling proposition.”

The new codeshare flights are available for sale through both airlines’ reservation systems, on www.airseychelles.com and www.alitalia.com websites, as well as through local travel agents.

Air Seychelles was established in 1978 and began long-haul service in 1983. The airline currently offers international flights to Abu Dhabi, Antananarivo, Dar es Salaam, Johannesburg, Mauritius, Mumbai and Paris. Air Seychelles also offers more than 200 domestic scheduled flights a week throughout the archipelago, including domestic charter services. As the national airline of the Republic of Seychelles, Air Seychelles is a pillar of tourism, the island nation’s strongest and growing economic sector. The airline maintains a strategic partnership with Etihad Airways, the national airline of the United Arab Emirates and 40 per cent stakeholder.