April 8, 2011 – 12:12 pm, by
Ben Sandilands
The approval announced this morning for a comprehensive code sharing arrangement between Air New Zealand and Etihad isn’t big news, yet it adds to the growing framework of links between those carriers and separately, each of them with Virgin Blue, that is starting to throw a shadow over a shrinking Qantas.
A highly respected figure in Australian aviation earlier this week made the point to me that Qantas had lost sight of its main asset which was, he said, its global network.
What is significant with the interlinking of Virgin Blue, Air New Zealand and Etihad is that it adds to consumer awareness of an expanding alternative to Qantas, even if the revenue is split between three parties, or by route, two of them at any time.
And perceptions are powerful. As Qantas un-Australianises itself, and cross subsidises a Jetstar that alienates many Qantas customers at first flight, Virgin Blue (or Virgin Whatever) becomes a more visible national face of a very useful strategy of having alliances to Europe via Abu Dhabi, to New Zealand, which is Australia’s biggest overseas market, and if approval is ever granted, to the US in the form of additional links with Delta.
All of these routes flown by three carriers with very new aircraft and cabin product.
Today’s deal doesn’t direct more existing revenue to Virgin Blue, since it is between Etihad and Air NZ, but it does create a structure which gives consumers more reason to think about a Virgin Blue code share with either of them on a whole range of routes as an alternative to ditching Qantas for Singapore Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Thai and Emirates, who are all benefiting from the Qantas obsession with down scaling the full service brand to core routes, something Qantas has gone ahead with even though the new fleet it needed to make it work is trapped years away in the 787 nightmare in Seattle.
In the nitty gritty, the new Etihad Air NZ deal means Etihad code shares on its trans Tasman flights, and Air NZ code shares on the Australia-Abu Dhabi-London flights by Etihad, which includes its triple daily frequency into Heathrow from a Middle East hub that some travellers describe as much more pleasant to use than nearby Dubai.
This is surely an indication that QF management have no idea of how to run an international full service airline.Joyce and his cohorts are the ones trashing the Qantas brand....not the pilots,not the engineers nor any other employee group~~my comment not Ben Sandilands