Airline News
Qantas and Emirates to strengthen ties and put the B787-9 to good use
October 9th 2015
Qantas Airways could fly its B787-9s from Dubai to destinations in Mainland Europe and Emirates Airline could begin flying to Cairns and Darwin in the next three to five years, as part of their partnership, Emirates president, Sir Tim Clark, told the Sydney Morning Herald. Read More » Separately, Qantas CEO, Alan Joyce, told ATW the carrier was considering nonstop Perth-Heathrow services using the -9. With a range of 8,300nms, the stretched Dreamliner could easily perform the 7,842nms, 17 hours 30 minutes journey.
Clark and Joyce met last week to discuss the future of their alliance. Afterwards, Clark told reporters in Dubai he was confident of expanding the partnership beyond its expiry date of 2018. Asked if Emirates could fly to secondary cities in Australia, Clark said: "Darwin, Cairns, Broome, Alice Springs. Look, there are lots [of possibilities]," according to Gulf News. He said there was potential to expand its offering in Australia's major cities with increased capacity and frequencies.
At present, Qantas offers one daily A380 flight from Sydney to London via Dubai and another from Melbourne to London via Dubai as part of its partnership with Emirates in the European market. Clark pointed out the potential for Qantas to resume flying to European cities like Frankfurt, Paris and Rome once it begins receiving eight B787-9s from late 2017, in addition to 15 options with guaranteed delivery dates and a further 30 purchase rights.
"The range and the economics of the 787-9 open up a lot of route opportunities, so we'll be looking at those as the delivery of our first aircraft gets closer," Qantas said on Tuesday. "Naturally, our alliance partners form part of that thinking, in terms of offering the best joint network that we can."
Separately, Qantas's low-cost arm, Jetstar, last week launched a thrice-weekly Townsville-Denpasar A320 service, the airport’s first international schedule.
The new route comes following a significant Australian government drive to upgrade and expand traffic at Australian East Coast regional destinations that see significant tourist visitors, including Townsville and the Sunshine Coast. Jetstar Australia-New Zealand chief, David Hall, said the new service “would not have been viable” without the strong commitment of the Australian government to build cost-effective international customs and passenger handling infrastructure at the airport. The Sunshine Coast is scheduled for a runway upgrade, expanding it to 2,438m, enabling it to handle wide-bodies from across the Asia-Pacific, most notably China.
In other news, Jetstar signed a codeshare agreement with Chilean carrier LAN on Tuesday.
