Originally Posted by florin

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.


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.