QF defends AKL seat dip

THE withdrawal of Emirates on Tasman services from Mar under a revamped alliance with Qantas ( TD 11 Oct) will result in a net reduction of nearly 10,000 seats per week on trunk routes between Australia and NZ, QF has told the competition regulator.

Details were disclosed in a partially redacted submission to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission which is evaluating the re-authorisation of the Qantas/Emirates alliance.

Qantas highlighted that while some new flights were being introduced or existing services upgauged to wide-body aircraft on Auckland routes from Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, overall capacity adjustments on the routes will be reduced.

Capacity reductions include around 3,100 fewer seats on SYD/ AKL, 2,100 fewer on MEL/AKL and 4,700 on BNE/AKL.

“While on a narrow analysis relative to current operations... this must be assessed in the context of considerable overall growth that the alliance has facilitated since 2012 across the Tasman,” QF said.

In its submission to the ACCC, Qantas referred to its Tasman presence as “core to the group’s network and is a key component of its corporate and leisure proposition for customers”.

The Australian carrier said its partnership with EK had enabled the Dubai-based carrier to focus on non-stop services to Auckland, and the alliance’s overall capacity to NZ would rise by 16%.

Qantas cited capacity increases and “aggressive pricing” by the likes of Qatar Airways and Etihad on the Australia-UK/Europe and Tasman markets for its need to “evolve” its Emirates alliance.

“Qantas does not have the capital or geographic advantage required to grow sustainably and compete effectively with mid-point carriers on its own - and this has been borne out by the financial impact of the most recent significant capacity additions that other carriers such as Qatar Airways have introduced to and from Australia.”

MEANWHILE, Qantas has today advised that its foreign ownership level has dropped below 44% and was at 43.6% at the end of 2017.

Qantas is required to advise the ASX if its foreign ownership level changes by more than 1% or falls below 44%.

At the start of Dec, its foreign ownership had been 46.72%.