According to an interview by Nikkei.com, American Airlines (AA) CEO Tom Horton wants to once again strengthen its partnership with Japan Airlines (JAL). Currently JAL and AA has a joint business agreement with AA to cover the transpacific routes but it is limited to passenger business only. AA wants to further that relationship and make Japan one of the pillars of its growth strategy.

Currently Japan Airlines (JAL) and British Airways (BA) have a joint business agreement on flights between Europe and Japan. After rounds of negotiation, Finnair (AY), JAL and BA have reached an agreement to deepen their ties and to include Finnair in the joint business agreement.

American Airlines (AA) has just announced the new Dallas Fort Worth (DFW) - Seoul Icheon (ICN) service together with a couple of new flights to Lima, Dusseldorf and Dublin. The new ICN service will be AA's first service to South Korea. The new DFW-ICN flight will commence on May 9 2013 and will be part of AA and JAL's joint business agreement. This means they will be sharing profits and costs on this route.

As we know, Japan Airlines (JAL) and British Airways (BA) have received approval from authorities and will start their joint business from October 1 2012. JAL has just announced the details of the joint business and more importantly the enhanced JAL Mileage Bank (JMB) benefits that comes with the new joint business. Basically, the agreement is very similar to the one we saw with American Airlines (AA) with comes with elite flight bonus and enhanced accumulation rates. Below are the details.