The Chairman and CEO of Spain’s Iberia and Mexico’s Interjet, Luis Gallego and Miguel Alemán Magnani respectively, have signed a broad code-sharing agreement for the two airlines in Madrid, on the occasion of the state visit to Spain by Mexico’s president, Enrique Peña Nieto.

Under the agreement, Interjet’s first, Iberia can link its 80 destinations in Spain, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East to 24 destinations in Mexico, which may be extended to a total of 36. Iberia operates two non-stop flights a day between Madrid and Mexico City.

The routes will be added gradually, and will start off with such business destinations as Guadalajara, Bajío, and Monterrey, and such holiday destinations as Cancún and Huatulco. There will be more than one daily connecting flight on all five of these initial routes.

Iberia Chairman and CEO, Luis Gallego, said: “We’re delighted to have Interjet as our partner in Mexico, for it is an airline that combines efficiency with good customer service. Thanks to this agreement, our customers in Spain, Europe and Mexico will have convenient and competitive connections to cities on the two sides of the Atlantic”.

Interjet Chairman Miguel Alemán Magnani commented: “This agreement is of major importance, not only for Interjet, but for all Mexicans, because it contributes to air connectivity and to business, and holiday travel between the two countries. Interjet and Iberia are both showing their commitment, mainly to their customers.”

The agreement, whose implementation is pending the relevant permits by Mexican authorities, reflects the commitment of the two airlines to facilitate the growth of business and holiday travel in both directions.

Iberia customers can book their flights to or from the cities served by Interjet in Mexico to Madrid or any of Iberia’s 80 destinations in Spain, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. Tickets can be booked on the Iberia website, at Iberia offices, or at travel agencies.

Interjet and Iberia both operate from Terminal 1 at Mexico City’s Benito Juárez International Airport, in Mexico City, which will facilitate flight connections between them, and both are working to reduce connection times to the minimum.

The Iberia-Interjet code-sharing agreement is intended primarily to distribute European –and especially Spanish- business and holiday traffic in Mexico.

Interjet’s cutting-edge reservations system made it possible to meet all the requirements of the code-sharing plan in the record time of eight weeks. The alliance means that Iberia passengers can enjoy the excellent service and comfort offered by Interjet on all its flights.

This is Interjet’s first strategic alliance with an international airline, and there are plans to extend it to allow the sale of Iberia tickets through Interjet’s sales channels.

The agreement entails no equity investments by either airline, but is merely a strategic alliance intended to benefit the customers of both carriers.

Interjet launched operations in December, 2005, and now serves some 40 Mexican destinations, including Mexico City, Toluca, Monterrey, and Guadalajara, as well as 12 international routes: Guatemala City, Havana, San Jose de Costa Rica, Bogotá, and the U.S. cities of New York, Miami, Las Vegas, and San Antonio, Texas. It operates more than 260 flights a day with a fleet of 42 Airbus A320s and seven Superjet 100s, all of the equipped with the latest technology including cameras then enable passengers to view the takeoff and landing of every flight. For passengers’ additional comfort, the airline removed 30 seats from the original configuration of the Airbus A320s, leaving them with just 150 seats, while the number of Superjet 100 seats was reduced from 103 to 93 for added room and comfort.

Interjet boasts the largest passenger traffic on domestic flights in Mexico, according to the country’s civil aviation authorities, and in 2013 it posted a 24% domestic market share. Its fleet is one of the world most modern and includes 42 Airbus A320s and eight Sukhoi Superjet 100s.

Iberia has flown to Mexico 1950 and is now Europe-Mexico market leader with two daily Madrid-Mexico City flights, both of them with good connections to/from Iberia’s entire destination network. Iberia is market leader on Europe-Latin America routes in general, and with its subsidiary Iberia Express unit and its franchise partner Iberia Regional Air Nostrum the company operates a fleet of some 130 aircraft to complete about 600 return flights every day to more that 100 destinations in 38 countries of Europe, the Americas, Africa, and the Middle East. Today it is the world’s fourth most punctual airline, according to FlightStats. It offers convenient connections at its T4 hub in Madrid Airport, which was recently voted the world’s third-best air terminal in a Skytrax survey. Iberia is a member of the oneworld alliance, whose members make more than 10,000 flights a day to about 890 cities in more than 150 countries.