Jetstar?
 

With no mainline paying the Jetstar costs will it last long?

Emirates are okay but not quite up to SQ/CX/QR standards. Ten abreast in economy in their B777s is a bit tight.

I'll happily fly EK but they're not my number one choice.

What's in it for EK ? How about a bunch of precious EGLL slots.........

Or perhaps access to the very valuable Qantas Frequent Flyer Programme?

Yeah, I don't know either, it's just that he seems to make a habit of telling heads of other airlines how things are going to be. Pretty much exclusively to his own detriment.

Maybe he's learnt his lesson and has gone cap in hand to TC to ask for help..........but i don't think so.

Keep in mind EK don't need Qantas. Sure a Qantas domestic feed will help a little bit, but really it is only a regional feed because EK already fly to every major city in Australia, so EK won't get the boost from a domestic alliance in the same manner EY did with Virgin. But you can bet your @ss Qantas needs EK because they currently have no international network (to speak of) and they will benefit massively from the EK feed as inbound tourists hop between states.

Further more, the Australian connection really is such a small part of EK's network. So this deal is a game changer for Qantas and a minor improvement for EK.

Again, given AJ's historical tendency to arrogance, it will be interesting to see whether he can hold his tongue when EK start dictating terms. And believe me EK will start dictating terms. They now call the shots at Boeing and Airbus in regard to widebody design, so pulling AJ into line will be a relative walk in the park.

Emirates recently stated:

''Strategically it is a very important market for Emirates. [Australia] is now Emirates' second or third [highest] revenue-producing country,''

Emirates will soon operate 84 flights a week to Australia, so I wouldn't downplay the benefits of a domestic tie-up for both EK and QF. It's not just regional feed, but links capital cities so you can say fly into Perth on Emirates, then QF domestic to depart Sydney. It gives EK a much stronger Australian network with multiples of new options for travelers. With close domestic connections, it will show for example that EK can get you from ADL to DXB 5 times a day.

The QF international network is so small now anyway that an EK tie up may not make a difference at all , it will never expand regardless. Perhaps a shift to more US destinations would be possible.

I do agree QF management have a very long history of pi$$ing off other airlines with their arrogance and with the current management seemingly only able to kick own goals, there is a good chance they will completely stuff this one.

The real advantage to EK, as it is with EY, is that both airlines can increase capacity into and out of australia without having to fight for more access. This is clearly a bigger benefit to EY who have far less services to australia, but nevertheless that and the access to the pacific are the real reasons behind both the Virgin and Qantas alliances.

If this is the best AJ can do then it's sad times ahead for QANTAS. What was once one of the best airlines in the world joining up with possibly the worst airline (sardine can) in the world, how far can this Irish Alien go ??????

how far can this Irish Alien go ??????
 

Home to Ireland springs to mind

EK=sardine can? Um I dont think so.........:=

Stop! Look! LISTEN!!!
 

This looks like a train wreck to me!

And many complain Joyce is arrogant!

Why would he go "home" to Ireland when he has an Aussie passport? I'm not a fan either but these "go home" statements are ridiculous.

Maybe you're all just looking at it wrong.

Western countries tend to think the rest of the world plays by their rules.

How do we as a western country reconcile that this is probably more to do with the vast majority of hub traffic no longer hubbing through HKG, SIN, KUL etc, but hubbing through the UAE.

As in, this goes beyond simple business economics and more to do with nation state importance. Taking the airlines out of the equation, there's more in it for the UAE then there is for Australia if you look at it that way.

Virgin-Etihad

Virgin Australia Holdings Ltd. (VAH) has increased competition for Qantas on Europe routes through a tie-up with part-owner Etihad Airways PJSC. The deal lets Virgin sell tickets to about 30 European destinations, with only one stop in Abu Dhabi, Dubai’s neighboring emirate.
Qantas could potentially add more than 40 one-stop destinations through an Emirates deal, based on route maps on the airlines’ websites. British Airways is the carrier’s main European partner at present.
The airline could also save as much as A$600 million of capital spending over the next five to six years by dropping the Frankfurt route and tying up with Emirates, Russell Shaw, an analyst at Macquarie Group Ltd. in Sydney, said by phone. The main saving would be avoiding the need to replace three Boeing Co. 747 aircraft, he said.
“There’s also an opportunity for Qantas to win a little bit of market share back,” he said.



Doesn't look like the Domestic bit has much to do with this deal. Looks more like downsizing the International Fleet/Flying. Not good for pilot careers in Australia.
I wish someone who knows about growing business, rather than cost cutting was allowed some time at the helm of QF.
I hope this turns out to be only a rumour.


The Don

I call it eating the seed corn. This is what starving peasants sometimes did in winter - leaving them nothing to plant in spring and certain death.

Throw International to the wolves.

Watch Virgin slice into their domestic market share.

Leaving them with the bastard child Jetstar - which no one wants to fly.

Joyce and the Board are clutching at straws.

....at least until that takeover bid arrives, the airline goes private and voila! It is suddenly profitable again!

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.

I've been watching the QAN short interest for a while. Interestingly, it's declined from 0.25% after the selldown from $1.50 to its current level of ~0.04%. If we assume that the shorts are the smart money, they have been saying for a month or so that the risk-reward is skewed to a higher, rather than lower price for QAN. Do they know something the market generally doesn't? I wonder who has had a whiff of this deal, and when did they know?

I think those who go short (in big numbers) use large amounts of technical analysis to form their trading levels and strategies. For most it is numbers on a graph, nothing more.

ampclamp, sure there are technical & fundamental traders who use this publicly available data. Fundamental traders would possibly construct their own data too (ratio's & metrics between airlines, oil price and modelling the economy etc). However, the smart money has other information not available to everyone, lets call them "information" traders, they specialise in knowing who & what to know & front-run the public information flow. You may want to read up on Raj Rajaratnam & his Galleon Fund & insider "expert networks". Where ever the ability to profit from this information asymmetry exists, it will be used, hence the "smart money" gives us hints at their view, and one of these metrics is short interest.

Its not nearly as easy to go short as to go long for the retail investor (try finding a retail short selling broker, google search) unless you use some sort of leveraged instrument (CFD's & options). Institutions and Hedge fund have no trouble borrowing stock to short, this is routine business for them.

Some of the reported shorts would be hedges for options, warrants & CFD market makers. However, I believe it provides an excellent view how insiders consider the likely risk/reward skew in prices because retail can't do it easily, ie only connected bigger traders will use shorts routinely. It is still possible to do retail, just not easy.