Virgin Australia and Air Canada has today announced plans to begin codeshare services from early 2017. The partnership means guests will be able to arrive into the USA  or Australia and connect onto an Air Canada or Virgin Australia flight seamlessly.

Per Virgin Australia,

“We are enhancing our services from Australia to Los Angeles by offering our customers convenient codeshare connections to four major Canadian cities.

“Canada is also an important inbound tourism market for Australia, with visitors spending AU800 million in 2015 and visitor arrivals increasing by three per cent.

With this partnership, Velocity members will be able to earn Velocity points and Status credits, the airlines also plan to reciprocal benefits when it comes to redeeming points. Members of Air Canada’s program ‘Aeroplan’ will be able to earn on Virgin Australia flights.

Air Canada currently fly to two destinations in Australia, Sydney gets their 777-200LR which features their old herringbone seating in business and their 787-8/9 which flies to Brisbane and holds their brand new reverse herringbone business class seating. Passengers on these services will be able to connect onto Adelaide, Canberra, Cairns, Melbourne, Perth, Christchurch, Auckland, Sydney, Brisbane, Sydney, Gold Coast and Wellington onbaord Virgin Australia operated flights.

Passengers travelling from either Brisbane, Sydney or Melbourne on Virgin Australia will be able to connect onto Toronto, Calgary, Montreal and Vancouver onboard Air Canada operated services.

Virgin operate their newely refrubished 777-300ER on the long-haul sectors. Here is a review of their new business class.

This is a nice move by both carriers which I’m sure will add more competition to the Qantas-American partnership. With these reciprocal benefits coming in 2017 I’m hoping to reivew Air Canada as they look quite impressive.

Featured Image: Air Canada