Qantas extends Emirates deal, to fly to London via Singapore

SYDNEY: Australia’s Qantas Airways Ltd said it will extend its partnership with gulf carrier Emirates for another five years, but dropped its own flights to Emirates’ Dubai hub to boost capacity into Asian destinations.

Australia’s biggest airline said it would return to flying its flagship Sydney-London “kangaroo route” via Singapore rather than Dubai.

“Our partnership has evolved to a point where Qantas no longer needs to fly its own aircraft through Dubai,” said Qantas chief executive officer Alan Joyce in a statement.

When Qantas began its alliance with Emirates in March 2013, it dropped flights to London and Europe via Singapore in favour of Emirates’ hub in Dubai.

Qantas had already said in April that it would cut its Melbourne-Dubai-London flights operated in partnership with Emirates, and fly via Perth instead.

The airline said yesterday it would upgrade the existing daily Melbourne-Singapore flight to an A380 from an A330, increasing its capacity into Asia.

Qantas said the extension would provide a benefit of more than A$80 million (RM302 million) a year to the airline from fiscal 2019.

The extension to the partnership is subject to government and regulatory approval.

Last week after reporting its second-highest annual profit, the airline laid out plans to fly nonstop Sydney to London from 2022. Reuters