Emirates and Qantas could expand their alliance to include flights to North America, Emirates boss Tim Clark has said after revealing the Dubai based carrier is in alliance talks with American Airlines. Mr Clark said talks with American parent AMR have been ongoing since late last year and involve codesharing and reciprocal frequent flier benefits.
Qantas’s efforts to extend its codesharing partnership with South African Airways have won a partial victory despite concerns over its effect on competition, with the tie-up tentatively approved through 2014. The International Air Services Commission earlier this year rebuffed a Qantas request to extend the codeshare for five years, instead proposing to terminate the 12-year-old
A record 55 million passengers travelled on Australian domestic flights last year as growth on regional routes spiked in response to the mining boom. Sydney remained Australia’s busiest domestic airport with 24.2 million passenger movements, followed by Melbourne with 21.4 million and Brisbane with 16.4 million, according to figures released by the Bureau of Infrastructure,
Qantas is reportedly trying to convince Singapore Airlines to break its alliance with Virgin Australia and join the Qantas-Emirates tie up formed last week. The Australian Financial Review reported today that Qantas executives have made their case to senior officials at Temasek, the Singapore government investment vehicle that owns 56 per cent of Singapore Airlines.
Virgin Australia is seeking to pry away half of Qantas’s weekly allocation of seats to Italy. In an application to the International Air Services Commission, which distributes capacity to Australian airlines under international air treaties, Virgin said it was seeking 300 seats per week to support the introduction of code sharing services on existing flights
QantasLink will launch direct flights between Sydney and Gladstone next year as it continues to expand its Bombardier Dash 8 Q400 turboprop network. The Sydney-Gladstone services are scheduled to commence on March 4 2013 and will operate eight times per week, including twice daily on Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays. The 2-hour 35-minute route will be
