Emirates Wants to Extend Qantas Pact for Pacific Routes
By David Fickling - Jan 8, 2013 2:00 AM GMT+0800
Emirates, the world’s largest airline by international traffic, said it wants to extend its alliance with
Qantas Airways Ltd. (QAN) across the Pacific Ocean, allowing passengers to fly round the world on Airbus SAS A380s.
The carriers have scope to link Qantas’s A380 flights into
Los Angeles with routes the Gulf carrier seeks to operate from its Dubai hub, Emirates President
Tim Clark said in a phone interview. The partnership won provisional approval from Australia’s antitrust regulator last month.
“If the timing is right and the two aircraft meet, with Qantas and Emirates you could go around the world with A380s, which is a cool proposition,” he said yesterday. “I’m sure we could do trans-Pacific business on Qantas metal as part of this overall deal.”
Emirates would push for the alliance’s extension into transpacific routes -- some of the most profitable for Qantas -- only if the Australian carrier’s Chief Executive Officer Alan Joyce and his management back the idea, Clark said. Shares of the Sydney-based airline have risen more than 30 percent since the partnership was announced in September as Joyce restructures operations to end overseas losses.
Clark said a tie-up across the
Pacific Ocean was left out of the discussions for the current alliance because “the trans- Pacific is Qantas territory.” Still, the regulator’s initial approval doesn’t prevent the carriers from exploring the option, he said.
The companies could also link their routes into Dallas, Clark said. Qantas may fly the
Boeing Co. (BA) 787 into Dubai once it starts receiving the composite-bodied planes, he said.
A380 Terminal
Emirates, which opened the world’s first dedicated A380 terminal at its Dubai hub, may need about 30 more of the double- decker superjumbos, Clark said. The carrier is studying ways to increase the range of the aircraft to allow it to run services to Los Angeles, as well as Houston and
San Francisco, he said.
The existing partnership, due to start in April, will let Qantas sell tickets to 60 new one-stop destinations in
Europe, the Middle East and
Africa via Emirates’ Dubai hub. The tie-up would also help it overhaul Asian schedules.
Under the planned accord, the airlines intend to coordinate pricing, sales and scheduling, as well as aligning frequent- flyer programs so passengers can earn points on both the carriers’ flights. Emirates will gain access to Qantas’ Australia and
New Zealand network under the deal.
European Hub
Qantas, which lost A$450 million ($472 million) on international operations in the year ended June, will shift its European hub to Dubai from
Singapore. The carrier is also abandoning a 17-year partnership with British Airways and ending a loss-making Frankfurt route alongside the agreement.
The conditional approval by the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission, granted Dec. 20, broadly backed the tie-up. It would let the carriers ally for five years rather than the proposed 10, and regulate the speed at which they could add capacity on flights between
Australia and New Zealand.
“The ACCC allows us to do that kind of thing,” he said about the possibility of extending the alliance. “Getting up fares and meshing a product that takes people and keeps them in the Qantas-Emirates network.”