Australia is clearly a lucrative market for QR. They were denied additional flights and the press had a field day, so the gov't would now be under pressure to approve this acquisition in the name of more competition for the Australian consumers, especially with Bonza going bust and Rex getting a smack down from QF, forcing them to abandon capital city flights. I think it's a clever move by QR, because the question is framed differently, cannot be tied to the strip search incident, and it is about VA having more flights, not QR.
Originally Posted by
Top of climb
Why on earth would QR do that? The VA flights will be taken from the (presently unused) Australian side of the bilateral and is basically a clumsy workaround the current restrictions. It is entirely in QR’s interests to push for the additional rights irrespective of what it does through VA.
Agreed; I don't see those rights being transferable from VA to QR.
It will be interesting to see how QF will try to flex their muscle to prevent this; QF is known to be ruthless with the competition while also very generous with Australian politicians.
Interestingly, TK now has a presence in MEL and offers significantly lower prices to Europe. It does involve an additional flight (MEL-IST is flown via SIN), so it's definitely less convenient, but I checked for an upcoming trip that I'm planning and QR is $2300 VS. TK $1600 - a significant difference.