China Eastern Collaborates With Alibaba Group

China Eastern Airlines has entered into a strategic partnership with Alibaba Group for online ticket sales.

The Alibaba subsidiary Alipay will provide a direct payment service for the online ticketing business of China Eastern's official website, and Taobao.com will have a flagship store selling tickets for all flights and all seats of China Eastern.

It is also the first time that Alibaba Group has partnered with a large-scale domestic airline. Now not only can passengers buy tickets through China Eastern's flagship store on Taobao.com, but they can log on China Eastern's official website via their Alipay account, choose the flights they need, and then pay the bill.

Taobao.com introduced its air ticket platform at the end of 2007. Statistics show that more than 800,000 queries are made now each day for ticket prices on Taobao.com. Survey results from iResearch Consulting Group show that Taobao.com has become the second largest platform, following Ctrip.com, for air ticket purchase online.