From the news wires
DOHA (Zawya Dow Jones)--Dubai-based Emirates Airline is talks with Australia's Qantas Airways Ltd. (QAN.AU) about a code-sharing agreement and a deal could be completed within two to three months, a person familiar with the matter said Thursday.
Any tie-up would give Emirates access to Australia's lucrative domestic market, while Qantas' struggling long haul operations could receive a boost, the person, who asked not to be named, told Zawya Dow Jones.
Qantas Airways shares climbed 10% Thursday after it revealed it's working on a potential partnership with the world's largest international passenger carrier that could see it route European flights through Dubai instead of Singapore.
Confirmation of the talks comes just a week after the Australian government gave the green light to Emirates' Abu Dhabi rival Etihad Airways to lift its stake in Qantas competitor Virgin Australia (VAH.AU) to 10%. Emirates favors organic growth, while Etihad has recently bought a string of minority stakes in carriers across the world, strategic alliances that it hopes will funnel traffic through its Middle East hub.
Speculation has been mounting for weeks that Qantas and Emirates are close to signing some form of commercial partnership.
Any deal with Emirates would benefit Qantas by allowing it to place passengers flying to Europe on Emirates flights instead of having to pay for flying them on its own aircraft. This could involve the airline flying aircraft to Dubai, where passengers would then transfer to an Emirates flight to travel on to Europe.
"You could go anywhere to Australia on an Emirates ticket and Dubai would provide Qantas with a good base to serve people internationally," the person familiar with the talks said.
Codeshare deals are structured differently. Most allow carriers to sell tickets on each other's flights and share the revenue, though this partnership could see the airlines sell a quota of seats for a certain price on flights, the person said, adding the agreement would unlikely involve revenue-sharing. There could also be agreements on ticket pricing.
Emirates currently code-shares with Air Malta, Air Mauritius, Japan Airlines, Jet Airways, JetBlue, Korean Air, Oman Air, Philippine Airlines, and South African Airways.