No such reluctance about going for the jugular on Plane Talking this morning.
ACCC didn't give Qantas-Emirates deal a ringing endorsement | Plane Talking
What getz me is how the daily media pussy foot around the bleeding obvious at times.
I'm keen to support Qantas but it seems to do everything possible to make me choose a different airline when family members to Europe or Asia, including a daughter who has to fly to Asia around six times a year. I've taken to Virgin for the few Australia flights I do, but some of us fly a lot, and Qantas has just lost the plot.
Which raises the expectations of Qantas from the Emirates partnership, in that they obviously expect that existing Qantas customers will dutifully accept flying in Emirates jets. As in Qantas, We are the reason you fly Emirates.
The fact is that Emirates has already won very strong customer loyalty in Australia, and in its A380s, has product that makes the Qantas A380 alternative look unexceptional. The Emirates 777s are another matter, being great aircraft rather tightly configured, although Emirates may revise those configurations and has already let slip that it will improve its 777 business class offering.
The risk is that those Qantas customers that haven’t already defected to Emirates are probably not going to revisit their choices once Qantas dumps them if they fly to Europe from Brisbane, Perth or Adelaide, but will take their business somewhere else, such as to Singapore Airlines, Etihad or Cathay Pacific.
Those Qantas customers that are exposed to an Emirates A380 may well choose Emirates over Qantas in the future, given that both frequent flyer programs are very good, and have good crossovers. Those Qantas customers who change flights to an Emirates service to say, Manchester or Hamburg, in Dubai, would have an incentive to choose to fly all the way on Emirates the next time, since it will be more convenient to do so in most circumstances.
These risks or considerations are reason to query just where the Qantas-Emirates partnership will take Qantas, but as the ACCC determination makes clear, these were not matters it had to consider under its charter.
It is there to make sure Australians enjoy competitive choice. It isn’t there to stop Qantas imploding on routes to the UK and Europe.