China United Airlines Company and Chinese online payment provider AliPay have entered into a strategic cooperation.

CUA and AliPay will work together on e-ticketing services for B2B and B2C businesses. Now AliPay users can log onto CUA's website with their AliPay accounts and pay for their tickets by AliPay, online banking services, or credit cards.

CUA is not the only airline to cooperate with AliPay. Hainan Airlines and Shenzhen Airlines are already partners of AliPay. Through this cooperation, not only can airlines reduce their cost of sales and improve the convenience of their ticketing service, but they also benefit from 180 million AliPay users which provide a huge potential market for airlines.

(China Hospitality News June 29, 2009)