Emirates tie-up to help Qantas swing into profit

Dubai: Qantas’ partnership with Emirates will help fasttrack the Australian flag carrier’s loss-making international business into profitability, according to a Qantas top executive.

“Emirates is part of the solution. There was never a silver bowl which was turning Qantas International around. And partnership with Emirates is one of the initiatives among others. Turning around Qantas International, which is losing money, it’s going to take till 2015,” Alan Joyce, managing director and chief executive of Qantas Airways, told Gulf News in an interview on Monday.

On how the Emirates partnership is helping revive Qantas’ international business, Joyce said: “To be a competitor on the European routes, we needed to work with a hub carrier. The end-to-end carriers had completely disappeared and we had two choices — either exit from Europe or work with a hub carrier. For our brand and our image, we didn’t want to exit from Europe. We wanted to keep a presence and the best way of doing that was to work with a big hub carrier. And Emirates is the best of the hub carriers.”

He added that Emirates played a big part in fixing Qantas’ problems in Europe and the Middle East.

Commenting on the long-term prospects of the alliance, Joyce said he was confident the partnership would get another a five-year extension. “It was a 10-year commercial deal but it’s got approval for five years from the regulator. And we need to go to the regulator for another five years,” he said.

Other alliances

On whether Qantas was looking to explore similar alliances with other Gulf carriers, such as Qatar Airways and Etihad Airways, Joyce said: “We won’t be looking at alliances with other carriers in the Middle East. It’s an exclusive deal [with Emirates] on both sides — on a whole series of routes. So in the same manner, Emirates can’t do a deal with Virgin in Australia and we won’t do a deal with Etihad Airways or Qatar Airways.” He added that Qatar Airways, however, could be a member of oneworld, of which Qantas is also a member.

“Similarly, Emirates won’t go off into a deal with Lufthansa on the German routes to Australia. So, we have that assurance of where each other stands,” he said.

Emirates and Qantas marked the official start of their partnership on March 31, 2013, with the first Qantas flight having departed from Sydney and Melbourne to London via Dubai. Combined, the two will offer 98 flights a week between Australia and Dubai. For Emirates customers, it opens up Qantas’ domestic network of more than 32 destinations.