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Emirates wants to extend its alliance with Qantas Airways across the Pacific Ocean, allowing passengers to fly around 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,” 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 trans-Pacific routes only if Qantas’s chief executive Alan Joyce and his management back the idea, Mr Clark said.

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Shares of Qantas have risen more than 40 per cent since the partnership was announced in September, as Mr Joyce restructures operations to end overseas losses.

“I would think Qantas would have mixed emotions about that,” Peter Harbison, executive chairman of consultants CAPA Centre for Aviation, said. “It’s a market where they are still dominant.” Routes across the Pacific are some of its most profitable, he said. “You just have to go online and check the pricing to see it.”

Qantas territory

Luke Enright, a spokesman for the airline, had no immediate comment on the proposal.

Mr Clark said a tie-up across the Pacific Ocean was left out of the discussions for the current Emirates-Qantas 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, the hub for American Airlines, Mr Clark said. Emirates has pursued a code-share agreement with American, which hasn’t made progress as the US company examines a merger proposal from US Airways and goes through Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings, he said.

Qantas could also fly the Boeing 787 into Dubai once it starts receiving the composite-bodied planes, he said.

Deal ‘energising’

With budget carrier Jetstar, Qantas has just under half of about 33,000 seats available each week on flights between Australia and the continental US, Canada and Hawaii, according to data from CAPA.

Its main domestic rival, Virgin Australia, has about 10,000 seats on its own aircraft and those operated by its partners, Delta Air Lines and Hawaiian Airlines, the data show.

Qantas is “by far the biggest airline in the trans-Pacific market”, and the only one to operate from Australia beyond the US west coast, Mr Joyce said in an August 8 speech in Sydney.

The deal between Qantas and Emirates was “energising” regional airlines to strike new alliances, Mr Clark said, citing a recent code-share agreement between Air New Zealand and Cathay Pacific, and Singapore Airlines’ decision to take a 10 per cent stake in Virgin Australia.

“A lot of things started to happen, and suddenly prices are keener, product meshing is getting better and all sorts of arrangements are taking place that you wouldn’t have even thought about,” he said.

Emirates 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, Mr Clark said, and may need as many as 30 more of the double-decker jumbos.

Under the planned accord with Qantas due to start in April, the airlines intend to coordinate pricing, sales and scheduling, as well as aligning frequent-flier programs so passengers can earn points on both carriers’ flights. Emirates will gain access to Qantas’s Australia and New Zealand network under the deal.

Qantas, which lost $450 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 alongside the agreement.

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