Qantas and Emirates alliance moves closer
It has been mentioned on here before but a Qantas/Emirates alliance seems to be moving ever closer according to UK and Australian financial press. e.g. Australian Financial Review:
"Qantas Airways is prepared to sever a 17-year partnership with British Airways as part of its effort to form an .alliance with the world’s biggest .international airline, Emirates.
A tie-up with Emirates will hurt Qantas’s relationship with .partners in oneworld, the powerful travel alliance of 11 .airlines it co-founded with British Airways in 1998.
The Australian flag carrier .confirmed yesterday it was in .discussions with Emirates, among “a number of airlines”, over an .alliance.
Sources close to the situation said management at Qantas has accepted that the long-standing BA relationship would be the price of any deal with the Middle Eastern carrier.
As reported exclusively in The Australian Financial Review yesterday, under the deal being discussed Qantas could shift some of its flights on the Kangaroo route to London from transiting via Singapore to the “Falcon route” via Dubai.
The news sent Qantas shares up 9.6 per cent to $1.085, the biggest gain on the ASX 100 Index.
The move by Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce is part of a strategy to shift the premium airline towards an international model based on alliances – a tactic first enunciated in this country by Virgin Australia’s John Borghetti.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard was caught on the hop when asked about the deal yesterday morning, saying Qantas would always remain majority Australian owned because of the limitations of the Qantas Sale Act.
By the end of the day, Canberra sources said the government would not intervene in a commercial .alliance that did not involve Emirates taking equity in Qantas – something that is not under .discussion.
The only relevant approval would have to come from the competition regulator. While the code-share deal with Emirates has not been finalised, both carriers are confident it will be completed in coming months.
A deal with Emirates is expected to jeopardise Qantas’s existing code-share agreement with British Airways, which along with American Airlines and Cathay Pacific were the other founders of oneworld in 1998.
The Australian flag carrier is increasingly less reliant on traditional links with airlines such as British Airways and Cathay Pacific, and more focused on potential tie-ups with the likes of Emirates, China Eastern and soon, it is expected, Chile’s Latam."