Regional Round-Up
Qantas International traffic slips further
November 1st 2012
As Qantas Airways seeks a regulatory green light for its ground-breaking alliance with the Gulf’s Emirates Airline, the most recent statistics from Australia’s Department of Transport report a traffic slippage of 1.3% for its loss-making international arm. This reduced Qantas’ market share of traffic into and out of Australia to 17.1%. Read More »
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| British Airways: may end flights to Australia if Qantas-Emirates deal goes through |
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) will release a draft determination next month and announce its decision on the deal next March.
Virgin Australia, which has its own agreement with Emirates rival, Etihad Airways, said in its submission to the ACCC that while it doesn’t oppose alliances, its main objection to the proposed partnership was the 10-year time frame Qantas and Emirates want for their pact.
This compares with five years normally granted to such deals and, in the case of Virgin’s alliance with Air New Zealand, only three years.
Singapore Airlines, although not opposing the partnership, raised concerns with the ACCC that Qantas and Emirates would have a 47% market share of traffic between Sydney and the UK and 57% between Melbourne and the UK. It also questioned the proposed 10-year life span of the alliance.
Meanwhile, Qantas’ decision to switch its European operations from routing through Singapore to Dubai could bring an end to British Airways (BA) flights to Australia. Qantas would end its 17-year joint service agreement with BA under the new agreement with Emirates. It has shelved, too, code-share agreements with Air France and Cathay Pacific Airways.
“BA considers that it is increasingly challenging for an international airline to operate services on long-haul routes between the United Kingdom-Europe and Australia in the absence of such an alliance, due to persistent excess capacity and the nature of the substantial fixed costs involved in their operation,” the airline said in its submission to the ACCC.
It was an indication that BA would seek a new code-share partner to serve Australasia. That would leave only one European carrier, Virgin Atlantic Airways, flying its own metal to Australia. Virgin serves Sydney through Hong Kong.
Australia’s transport department concluded the proposed alliance would be positive and consistent with federal government aviation policy in its submission to the ACCC.
