Originally Posted by Tits McGhee
With the proposed buyout of QF by SQ, BA leaving the Aussie market could be a short-lived step. I think that if QF were to jump ship to *A, we could see BA move back to Aussie OR begin a large scale codeshare with JL when they join OW from NRT onwards to points throughout Oz.
I very much doubt that will happen. Firstly the Qantas Sale Act stops any foreign carrier from having more than a 25% share of QF. Whilst QF wants this repealed, the government has remained protective of QF thus far. I don't believe this is likely to change in the near future either particularly the prospect of the major Aussie carrier going into Singaporean hands.
Whilst the relationship between Singapore and Australia is strong, its not as strong as between Australia and the UK and I am sure that for the government to back a repeal of the Qantas Sale Act, BA would need to be the likely suitor rather than SQ. SQ purchasing QF would mean both dominant carrier in and out of Australia (SQ has the most flights in and out of Australia after QF) would raise many competition issues too which would be very hard to ignore and therefore the chance of the ACCC approving the deal from a competition standpoint without major concessions (unlikely to be palatable to SQ) would be low.
I would never doubt QF and BA buying back into each other at a later stage depending on economic conditions at the time. The two have been close partners for a long term - certainly well before BA owned part of QF and the concept of OneWorld was put into fruition.
http://www.comlaw.gov.au/ComLaw/Legi...0?OpenDocument