Singapore Airlines and United Airlines codeshare. JV on Singapore-US nonstops would make sense

The evolving Singapore Airlines (SIA) partnership strategy has reached another milestone with a new codeshare agreement with United Airlines. While SIA and United are longstanding members of the Star Alliance, their relationship has never been close and involved any codesharing.

SIA and United stated in a 9-May-2016 application with the US Department of Transportation they intend to start codesharing on 1-Jul-2016. Initially the codeshare includes eight United-operated domestic routes beyond Houston. However, the two airlines are seeking blanket codeshare approval, which would enable potential future extensions to cover United-operated flights beyond SIA's other US gateways, SIA-operated flights beyond Singapore and their flights in the US-Singapore market.

United is launching non-stop flights to Singapore in Jun-2016 while SIA is planning to resume non-stop flights to the US in 2018. United and SIA are fierce competitors across the Pacific but the new codeshare could open the door to a broader and potentially game changing partnership. SIA has been actively seeking new or enhanced partnerships, an initiative that has already resulted in new joint ventures with Star members Air New Zealand and Lufthansa.