A win-win situation for Emirates and Qantas

Dubai: The partnership that brought Australia’s Qantas Airways and Emirates Airline together has also created opportunities for positive changes in business operations for both carriers.

At the ‘Big Conversation’ seminar on Monday at the Arabian Travel Market (ATM), Alan Joyce, managing director and CEO of Qantas Airways, and Tim Clark, president of Emirates, discussed what their partnership has meant for business since March 31.

Emirates saw a rise in bookings before its first flight as Qantas' partner, according to Clark.

“The consumer experience is far more meaningful,” said Clark. “We needed to get approval to align our pricing and products” but in future, Emirates will not “raise prices and reduce capacity, things that have happened in these kinds of arrangements in the past,” he said.

Clark hopes that the partnership will create “a rich and strong entity that will continue to grow.”

For Qantas, the partnership has created “growth opportunities”, said Joyce. He added that although Qantas’ international operations “has suffered”, its domestic operations are strong, creating profitability for the airline. He added that its international operations “will be back to profitability” in the coming years through the partnership.

“We are confident in where we are going,” Joyce said.

Meanwhile, Clark discussed opportunities created by some of the European destinations covered by Emirates. Emirates saw its new route between New York and Milan, to be launched in October, as an opportunity due to the limited number of passengers moving between the cities, Clark said.

Additionally, Clark said there should be more partnerships between airlines from different parts of the world. “Business models of legacy players are changing. People are moving… anything is possible,” he said.