Lufthansa-owned carriers Bmibaby and Germanwings are to advertise each others flights on their websites, as Germanwings gears up to launch flights from Manchester to Cologne later this month.

All of Bmibaby’s routes from Manchester, East Midlands, Birmingham and Cardiff are now available for search on the Germanwings site, while Germanwings routes from Manchester, Stansted and Edinburgh to Cologne (and on to other European cities via this hub) are now available via bmibaby.com.

The process works by handling the initial search on the partner website, before redirecting the customer where appropriate to the operating carrier’s site to complete the booking. The new service comes as Germanwings launches five-times weekly flights between Manchester and Cologne on October 25, its third UK destination.

The partnership makes sense for the German carrier, as Bmibaby is well established at Manchester airport, so the carrier will benefit from the increased exposure of its flights being available through Bmibaby’s search engine.

Lufthansa announced it was buying Sir Michael Bishop’s stake in Bmi in October last year , and the carrier also took control of Germanwings on January 1, 2009.