American & Qantas Joint Venture Receives Final Approval

"Protect competition". You Americans are funny sometimes. Garuda and a number of other airlines were recently slapped with fines by the Australian authorities for price fixing (even though the airline argued it was fair game). It's them you gotta watch out for. Hopefully the Aussies will have more interest in protecting passengers over airlines

Given the beating traditional carriers are taking from budget competition, it makes sense that American and Qantas would want to cooperate on their few remaining long haul routes with no budget competition and raise fares.

Expected outcome given the current administration: stupid and evil in all things.

In what universe is this good for customers? Joint ventures are bullshit regardless of how you spin it. I hope the Aussie government doesn’t suffer from complete regulatory capture; perhaps they’ll have the stones to quash this.

Qantas I can only read as Quant Ass. A bunch of dunk aussies getting a better deal on a US flight. Sorry, nobody cares.

Any chance we could see additional business class award availability to/from Australia by both companies?

Qantas members will have a deep and abiding cynicism about just how they might benefit from such an arrangement. For example, under the current arrangement, it is virtually impossible to find a redemption ticket on AA using QF points....on ANY route other than domestic US, at least in premium cabins. Qantas pushes BA seats, with the high taxes and fees, seriously disadvantaging customers.
Qantas has not done one consumer friendly thing in its hundred year history. It would be naive in the extreme to presume it will do so now.

As a Chicago based AA MM I look forward to having more
Flights west to GO East from O’Hairy...
Nonstop would fly over some interesting points, the Olde fashioned way of stoppong along the way Tahiti’ was pleasant arriving early morning welcomes by sweet smells
And lovely people...
Then venturing on to Christchurch and on to Sydney....
What ever happened to travel for its own sake.....

Qantas and American filed for ati this time in February 2028, early 2018, not early 2019, as incorrectly stated I. This piece.

Sorry- early 2018, not 2028. Lol

@Brian said: Any chance we could see additional business class award availability to/from Australia by both companies?

Good luck. Dream on.

@Chris - were you dunk when you wrote that?
@Andrew - the JV has already been approved by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission - no need for further approvals from this end.
It's worth noting that NZ/UA and VA/DL already have TPAC JVs.

It's time to allow Singapore Airlines to fly between the US and Australia, like they wanted.

As a (mostly) US-based QFF member, I’m looking forward to greater points and SC-earn from AA flights. The downside - it means having to fly AA.

Is it the same as BA with Iberia?

https://reut.rs/2Z0MnEb

Wow - I think I fell asleep twice reading this.

Most boring post of all time.

@ V -- Most boring comment of all time.

Hi Ben
Thanks for the article and news update.
I thought this might be a good thing for customers for increased award availability but looking at the comments, that might not be an outcome.

Are there any other joint ventures currrntl that we can use as a benchmark to see their outcomes?
I’m thinking by aa and ehtihad? Or Jetblue and Emirates? Or would those not be joint ventures and just 2 airlines code sharing?

Thanks

Gotta agree with @Paolo's sentiment. Qantas being Qantas will leverage this JV to boost their bottom line. That's their entire focus, despite how their world-class spin machine will spin this sh*t sandwich.

I apologise if I missed this in the article, but any idea if this will affect Qantas' flights from NY? I remember in a previous post you imagine they are going to be getting rid of the NYC-LAX segment. Could this JV be part of that?

How is this joint venture any different than the current OneWorld alliance arrangement?

As a consumer, I am not sure what benefit this will bring me. What new benefit will I receive that I do not already have?
FF miles - check
Baggage interline agreement - check
Lounge access - check

Need you to speak on the travesty that is the prices to fly out of DFW to anywhere in the world even in low season... they claim Texas is a breeding ground for the free market, but e.g. the Wright Amendment begs to differ. Also, AA should be ashamed of its claim that expansion at DFW is to benefit the customer when in reality it will just fortify the monopoly it runs there