Yesterday Ben wrote about how Qatar was threatening to leave the oneworld alliance (but wouldn’t).
Continue reading: The Reason Qatar Airways Cannot Operate More Flights To Australia
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
Oneworld carrier’s don’t seem to work with each other
Qantas partners with emirates to the detriment of Oneworld partner Qatar
American condones competition from the ME
If you join an alliance you are supposed to work with your partners.
As it stands now, it’s a marriage and their is more than one mistress
Good post. Why not just sign an open skies agreement? Then Qatar could fly where the market conditions warranted new flights. Is Australia that openly protectionist?
@Christian-
Think about it. Australia has no interest in having Qatar Airways serve the market without any caps. Qantas lobbies the Australian government hard core to prevent that from happening.
@Icarus - alliances increasingly mean nothing nowadays. American and Qantas have absolutely no incentive to do much with Qatar.. They can do better on their own.
"curfews suck"
Except when the planes pass over your home and you want to sleep at night.
Nice article, James!
Perth is a very important market for Qatar as Perth is the Australian city with the most UK migrants living in it making the Perth-London route much more lucrative than say Brisbane-London.
I am actually flying on Qatar's A380 from Perth to Europe (Via Doha) at Christmas and am looking forward to it. At least Qatar commits unlike Etihad who cut flights to Perth
Great article James. This is the kind of information that can be hard to find elsewhere and helps to make sense of something that puzzles a lot of people.
Curios that Qatar would offer daily service to Perth, Melbourne, and Sydney instead of something like daily to Melbourne and Sydney, 3x weekly to Perth, and 4x weekly to Brisbane. That would satisfy the 21 direct services cap while being able to serve all 4 airports.
@ Sam - I think a three weekly service would be tough to market in PER as it's less than a flight every second day.
I expect PER does well for QR so they would rather do that daily.
Qatar may offer good deals leaving Aus. I looked at them recently for a fare from London - Sydney in business and found a much better deal on Singapore which tells you how expensive they have become ex-UK.
Given the Qatar habit of flying anyway to secondary cities if they wanted BNE they would just tag on CNS for which there probably is a market if they are willing to build it.
@ Jason - Oh, I get why Qantas wouldn't want the competition. The question is how protectionist is the Australian government. Also, if Qantas is simply unable to compete, are they really up to snuff, or will they claim (justified or not) that there's some giant structural advantage already in place for Qatar that Qantas just can't match? If the Australian government really is that protectionist, the US government should absolutely deny the Qantas/American JV as being anti competitive.
too bad OOL is still far south otherwise QR could actually fly there as an alternative
@Christian : the "protectionist" argument *might* work for Canada, but given how many flights both EK and EY flies to Australia, plus Trans-Tasman 5th freedom rights, that argument really falls flat if QR attempts to use it.
Indeed Emirates, Qatar, & Etihad gave up on blaming Lufthansa for their limited access to Germany.
The agreement with Australia is quite similar but the total number of flights is not. Qatar can operate to only 3 airports in Germany and chose Munich, Frankfurt, Berlin.
Etihad & Emirates are also allowed to fly to only 3 german airports (both chose Munich, Frankfurt & Düsseldorf) without limits to their frequencies but are prohibited to fly to Berlin. Emirates got an exception to fly to a 4th destination Hamburg as they sponsor Hamburgs football team. Emirates has been dying to operate to Berlin.
@Christian, Australia is as protectionist as it needs to be to maintain a good balance between healthy competition and people's way of life. It sounds like you're from the US, a country that allows anyone, and that's why you have so many foreign workers doing jobs for $2/hr while the average American is living at the poverty level. Not to mention the steady stream of ships from Asia dumping millions of tons of cheap goods to all your Walmarts at the expense of family businesses. Funny though, that the US-based airlines want to maintain a monopoly (i.e. you can't have it both ways).
@James, great article and thank you for explaining it so well! I never thought why Qatar wasn't flying to BNE and "only" had daily flights to SYD and MEL. I've flown Qatar from my hometown PER a couple of times and they are a great airline.
"I am guessing the sole reason they operate a service to Canberra, is simply to pick up Sydney traffic. Qatar does not have rights to transport passengers domestically on the Sydney to Canberra legs only."
Generally how empty a the QR B77W on the SYD-CBR-SYD?
@Dennis - Without going down the political rabbit hole, if the Australian government wants to be as protectionist as they like, I have no issue with that. Where I take issue is selective protectionism, whether in the US or Australia.
As to the US airlines wanting to be monopolistic, you’re completely correct. Our government allowed far too much consolidation in the airline industry.
Ironically, It is because of the restrictive air service agreements that Adelaide gets international flights. It is not like Qantas has any interest in flying internationally out of Adelaide.
Great article James especially for those of us who live in Australia and live this blog. I am a regular traveler from BNE to MAN and have travelled just about every carrier. My most recent trip was with Qatar and indeed have to go via SYD. However the service was that good and transfer at Doha so much better than Abu Dhabi or Dubai I wouldn’t hesitate to do it again despite it adding one extra stop. Needless to say the very competitive price also seats a lot of people in Qatar’s direction too. I’d love to see them in Brisbane ASAP and know for a fact it would be a very popular choice.
Qantas has no intention of flying to Qatar as there is very little business to this part of the world. QR should think themselves lucky to have 21 flights.
Remember QF is not government subsidized like QR and if we are talking about restrictive air services agreement have a look at Canada.
According to Joyce Qantas's best performing route is PER/LHR and that is why they are looking at PER/CDG. Joyce has openly said that the UK route is now profitable something that they could not achieve over DXB.
They have a new code share agreement with AF and today's announcement, with KLM over Sin.
I’m not sure why, even under the current agreement, they choose Adelaide over Brisbane? Or maybe there is already too much competition on that route?
As a Europe-based One World Emerald I would love to see a much closer relationship between QR and QF over EK (of which I’m not a fan!). At least QR is - for now - part of a global alliance unlike EK. In any case I personally hope QR can expand its operations in Oz. Fingers crossed and thanks for the article James!
Fascinating article James.
One question that I have when reading this is how was the UAE able to get an Open Skies Agreement with Australia while Qatar was able to just obtain an Air Services Agreement with Australia? Is there more of a backstory to this? Was Qatar late to the party compared to the UAE so to speak?
QF has plenty codeshare with skyteam carriers AF, Taiwan's China Airlines, Shanghai-based China Eastern, with both Taiwan and China have separate open skies deal with Australia. QF and oneworld partner CX only recently announced limited codeshare deal. Alliances are seeing less influence indeed.
Dennis - You're talking utter rubbish. Australia is flooded with cheap Asian goods just as much as the US is. Protectionist air policies are also wholly unrelated to having a high minimum wage.
Emily - You'd understand why if you read the article...
HenryLAX - So if it's not protectionism, why is Qatar forbidden from operating more flights?
Great article, wondered why they did the Canberra route. Love QR and wish we they would open up miles redemptions again for Aus
What's ironic here, the Qatar and Qantas FF programs are the worst in the world, bloody rip-offs as we say in Australia. So who cares, I wouldn't fly any of them and especially Qatar where I am Platinum but have not taken a single flight since thee great rip off on May 27 this year. Ripped the crap out of their Not Very Privileged Club program, stole from their members overnight without warning. So fuck 'em.
Sydney - Canberra leg usually has as little as 30pax but believe it cheaper having the plane on the ground in Canberra than Syd due to parking fees and the local Govt offering support.
James, slight correction required - the ASA only allows a further 7 weekly flights to SYD/MEL/BNE/PER which continues or goes via a secondary city, not unlimited frequencies as you allude in the article.
@Dennis. You really ought to wake up and take a long hard look in Big W, K Mart, Target, Bunnings, Mitre 10, Coles, Woolworths, Aldi, 7-11, TRS, etc etc. Oh yeah, and also Myer and David Jones too! By the time you reply to this, you would have worn, eaten, slept in, used, driven, read, operated and generally consumed a whole dazzling combination of cheaply produced Chinese products yourself. Unless you're a local from Nimbin. Just saying.......
@ Emily - Adelaide is a secondary airport not covered by the 'big four airports' cap of 21 flights a week, while Brisbane is.
Brisbane is a much bigger and busier airport than Adelaide.
@ Micah - UAE doesn't have an Open Skies Agreement with Australia, it has an Air Services Agreement like Qatar does, its just that the UAEs ASA is much, much more generous than Qatars, presumably partly because of Qantas' lobbying.
Could Qatar operate a flight between say Brisbane-Bali-Doha or
Perth-Bali-Doha which is technically 5th freedom? And beable to get around the rule or does it have to be a domestic Australian location??
Very informative and well written article. Thank you, James. I especially like how you present objective facts, and then are careful to indicate what is speculation on your part while providing the basis for your thoughts.
Australia's Air Service Agreements seem very inconsistent. Emirates and Etihad have large excess capacity, Singapore has unlimited rights, Cathay is at capacity but at a moderate 70 flights a week, while Qatar can only have 21 to the majors. Would it really have been in Qantas' and the government's interest to allow Emirates and Singapore to have so much capacity originally? It just seems inconsistent to me. You can look at them all here - https://infrastructure.gov.au/aviation/international/files/Growth_Potential_Foreign_Airlines-Northern_Winter_2017-18.pdf
silly isn't it.I have an American Airlines AADVANTAGE THAT I use to get my one world points on in the future for Qatar/MAS/Cathay Pacific travel.the only reason I hang onto Qantas is the ANZ QANTAS CARD once I pay that off fully I plan to do a balance transfer elsewhere.
Really interesting article.
It sounds like Qatar airways only possible expansion is direct to Cairns or direct to Gold Coast. It may take a long time to make either profitable. I have flown 1 stop London to Gold coast on Air Asia X but that no longer flies. A stopping route in Bali (or similar) may be possible especially if they did free stopovers... But flying into Gold Coast or Cairns this would still struggle for business class.
the adelaide flight is a godsend if going to europe.i get a full day of work to about 2pm or 3pm.head home shower change then watch some tv to about 6:20pm then a taxi to the airport for the evening flight leaving just before 10pm.before such things began it was fly via an asian hub and make do with some god awful connection over singapore and unless you were going to london or paris or rome transferring airlines and an extra connection in say rome or istanbul or frankfurt or zurich for the final destination in some cases.
bronze at qff.i signed up for aadvantage as qatar don't give out points or rather one cannot earn them on the cheapest fare levels on qantas frequent flyer.
"Qatar can operate seven additional flights per week to the four major cities provided they continue on to a secondary airport, hence the 777-300ER flight to Sydney each day continuing on to Canberra."
Qatar can just move the Doha-Sydney-Canberra to Doha-Brisbane-Canberra so it can still service Brisbane and not leave it out and maybe use an A380 so they can handle the passengers for each airport combined.
British Airways and Qatar Airways have received regulatory approval from the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission to operate a joint business between Europe and Australia for the next five years.
BA and Qatar already codeshare on routes to Australia. Their existing joint-business, which allows co-ordination of schedules and fares on routes to Africa and Asia, does not currently cover Australia.