A code-sharing agreement is one under which an airline accepts passengers whose tickets are issued by another company, with the aim of making available to customers, flights to more destinations than a single company can offer on its own.
In practice, that means that TAP will probably be directly marketing flights to and from China on HNA planes, while the Chinese company will be able to sell tickets for TAP flights, for example to Brazil or Africa.
HNA, China’s largest non-state airline, is a shareholder of Azul, an airline controlled by David Neeleman, a Brazilian-American entrepreneur. He is one of TAP’s major shareholders via the Atlantic Gateway joint venture that he set up with a Portuguese partner, coach magnate Humberto Pedrosa.
On Tuesday, Portugal’s tourist board announced that the direct flights between Beijing and Lisbon would start in June next year, with three to four services a week. The announcement was made during a visit to China by Portugal’s Prime Minister, António Costa.
Neeleman had, in September, announced that TAP was preparing in cooperation with HNA to launch four direct flights a week between Lisbon and Beijing. At the time, he said that HNA was only intending to lay on two flights a week, but that after talks with him they upped that to four; he also said he hoped for still more frequent flights in future.
“There are 120 million people [from China] who travel outside China every year,” he said at the time. “We just want one percent or a part of one percent. That would already be very good for Portugal.”