Malaysia Airlines (MAS) is offering seamless one-stop air connectivity between Kuala Lumpur and several American cities through a code-sharing arrangement with American Airlines, one of its partner airlines in the oneworld alliance.

The national carrier said the code-sharing, effective today, will enable customers in Malaysia and the United States to book direct with them and take advantage of the 136 weekly connection options between Kuala Lumpur and Chicago, Dallas, New York, Miami and Raleigh through any one of its three European stations, namely London, Paris and Frankfurt.

MAS said all code-sharing services between Europe and the United States will be marketed as Malaysia Airlines flights, thus simplifying ticketing to one document issued by the national carrier.

Commenting on the arrangement, MAS Group Chief Executive Officer Ahmad Jauhari Yahya said this provides an excellent opportunity to expand its US network without having to mount its own flights to the various cities there.

It also gives the US customers more options to choose from to travel to Malaysia and is also expected to greatly contribute towards increased tourist arrivals into Malaysia, he said in a statement.

MAS suspended flights to New York some years back as part of its route rationalisation but has now reactivated the route through the code-sharing which allows a total of 15 weekly connection options to that city via its twice daily A380 flights to London and daily A380 flights to Paris.

The return from New York to Kuala Lumpur is also now possible through 21 weekly connections to the national carriers A380 flights from London and Paris.

Likewise, customers from Malaysia can now travel on MAS' A380 services to London and Paris as well as the B777 services to Frankfurt to connect the 19 weekly services to Dallas.

Return travel from Dallas to Kuala Lumpur is possible through 14 weekly connections to Malaysia Airlines' flights from London, Paris and Frankfurt.

Access from Malaysia to the idyllic holiday destination of Miami in Florida is now possible through either a transit in London or Paris which provide 14 weekly flights to the US city.

There are also 12 weekly air travel options from Miami to connect Malaysia Airlines A380 flights from both London and Paris to Kuala Lumpur.

As for Chicago, it can now be reached through MAS' A380 flights from Kuala Lumpur to London and Paris using 16 weekly connections between the two European cities and the US city in each direction.

Raleigh-Durham in North Carolina, US, is yet another city that will be connected with Kuala Lumpur through this code sharing, through twice weekly services from the UK capital and for the return travel on any one of the daily flights to London and continue their journey with Malaysia Airlines to Kuala Lumpur.

This code-sharing cooperation is part of the strategy of Malaysia's national carrier to develop commercial cooperation with oneworld alliance members.

It is also part of the national carriers initiative towards enhancing air connectivity with key priority markets overseas for increased tourist arrivals into Malaysia as required by the governments Economic Transformation Programme.