Emirates, Qantas seek to extend tie-up
dubai — Emirates will stop flying from Melbourne and Brisbane to Auckland from March 2018, and instead focus on its non-stop Auckland-Dubai service as part of new network changes planned under its strategic partnership with Qantas.
Emirates, which operates the world’s largest wide-bodied fleet, currently flies its flagship Airbus A380 superjumbos daily from Melbourne and Brisbane to Auckland and back, and the internationalgrade business class seats and first class suites have proven popular with business travellers.
In a joint statement, both airlines said the coordinated route changes would improve connectivity and schedule choice across combined network and provide customers with greater year round frequency and more services between Australia and New Zealand. “These changes reflect customer demand and the airlines’ respective network strengths and provide more options for customers to travel between Australia and New Zealand to Asia, the UK/Europe, Middle East and Africa,” the joint statement said.
While Qantas will fill the gap by boosting the number of flights across the pond in order to comply with the requirements of the original Qantas-Emirates alliance, which both airlines are seeking to extend to 2023, Emirates will retain its existing daily A380 flights from Dubai to Christchurch via Sydney, and the airline is also evaluating potential new direct services between New Zealand and Dubai.
“These changes reflect customer demand and the airlines’ respective network strengths and provide more options for customers to travel between Australia and New Zealand to Asia, the UK/Europe, Middle East and Africa,” said the statement.
Qantas’ new trans-Tasman services will carry Emirates code and will connect seamlessly to Qantas’ London services via Perth or Singapore and Emirates’ services between Australia and Europe via Dubai. Customers flying between Australia and New Zealand, particularly business travellers, will benefit from the improved schedule choice.
The changes also enable Emirates to reschedule its Australia flights to create a better spread of departure times throughout the day, offering customers more choice when connecting and arriving in to the 38 European and 28 Middle East and North African destinations served by the airline’s popular A380 and 777 aircraft.
These latest changes are included in the airlines’ application to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and New Zealand Minister of Transport for the extension of authorisation for the airlines’ joint business for another five years.
The airlines’ joint submission also includes, as previously announced, Qantas’ re-routing of its Sydney-London service via Singapore rather than Dubai and Emirates’ new, fourth daily A380 Sydney-Dubai service.
Emirates president Tim Clark said the first five years of the partnership has been a success.
“Reauthorisation of the partnership will allow us to leverage our combined network strengths to offer customers even more flight choices and reciprocal benefits for our millions of frequent flyer members,” he said. “It will enable us to continue developing world-class customer experiences, and contribute to stimulating increased opportunities for international trade, tourism and commerce.”
Qantas group CEO Alan Joyce said the network changes outlined in the airlines’ submission to the regulators provide even more options for customers.
“Since 2013 we have delivered more choice and a larger network to eight million passengers who have travelled more than 65 billion
The premise of the partnership [with emirates] has always been that we could serve our customers better together Alan Joyce, group CEO of Qantas
kilometres on our joint network. We are now enhancing the partnership to reflect customer demand, new aircraft technology and our respective network strengths,” said Joyce. “The premise of the partnership has always been that we could serve our customers better together. That’s certainly been true for the past five years and now we’re evolving our joint network so we can serve them even better for the next five.”
“By ending flights between Melbourne/Brisbane to Auckland, Emirates will benefit from reduced costs while customers will be able to better and seamlessly connect on Qantas on journeys to New Zealand,” said Saj Ahmad, analyst at London’s StrategicAero Research.
“This frees up airplanes for Emirates to instead launch its own direct Dubai-New Zealand flights as well as complement its connectivity via Qantas through services across Australia,” Ahmad told Khaleej Times. He said this de-risks Emirates’ exposure because in the past, it would have been directly competing with Qantas to vie for that same trans-Tasman and New Zealand traffic whereas now, they can hone in on operation synergies, reduce direct competition and harness the benefits of a more interconnected network where Qantas flies between Australia and New Zealand using their own aeroplanes.