Here’s some great news for air travelers, Qatar Airways, and Virgin Australia. I’m pleasantly surprised by how quickly this has been approved, at least on an interim basis.
In this post:
Qatar Airways’ creative request to boost Australia flights
A couple of months ago, it was announced that Qatar Airways intends to buy a 25% stake in Virgin Australia. While there are presumably many reasons that Qatar Airways was interested in this investment, the airline seemed to have one primary motivation — getting access to more of the Australian market.
The Australian government takes a rather protectionist approach with airlines based in the country. This has meant that Qatar Airways has been greatly limited in terms of the number of flights it can operate to Australia.
The bilateral agreement between Australia and Qatar only allows airlines from Qatar (in other words, Qatar Airways) to operate 28 weekly flights to Australia’s four main airports. In theory airlines from Australia could also operate 28 weekly flights to Qatar, but no Australian carrier has been interested in flying to the country… until now.
This is where Qatar Airways and Virgin Australia devised a brilliant plan:
- Virgin Australia will resume long haul flights, flying from various Australian airports to Doha, taking up those 28 bilateral slots on the Australian side
- However, Virgin Australia doesn’t have long haul aircraft, so the plan is that Qatar Airways will wet lease these planes to Virgin Australia
- In other words, this is a strategy to allow Qatar Airways to double its flights to Australia; these Virgin Australia flights will have a Virgin Australia flight number, but will operate with Qatar Airways aircraft, crews, etc.
Regulators have approved this arrangement, sort of
I was curious if regulators would approve this arrangement, given the extent to which they’ve historically protected Australian carriers, and particularly Qantas. Furthermore, there’s no denying that Qatar Airways is sort of exploiting a loophole here, in order to exceed the artificially low limit on flights between the countries.
The Australian Competition & Consumer Commission has just granted interim authorization for this plan:
- As of June 2025, Virgin Australia will start flying daily from Brisbane (BNE), Melbourne (MEL), and Sydney (SYD), to Doha (DOH)
- As of November 2025, Virgin Australia will start flying daily from Perth (PER) to Doha (DOH)
Let me once again emphasize that when we talk about Virgin Australia “flying” these routes, the only thing Virgin Australia will have to do with this is the marketing of the flight. Everything else will be typical of Qatar Airways.
So as you can see, a year from now Qatar Airways will basically have twice as many flights to Australia as it does now, with half of them being marketed by Virgin Australia.
Here’s how ACCC Deputy Chair Keogh describes this development:
”We consider that granting interim authorisation now will allow Qatar Airways and Virgin Australia the lead time to undertake the necessary planning discussions, marketing, selling and system alignment in preparation for Virgin Australia to commence flying the new services by June 2025.”
It’s worth noting that it’s still possible that final regulatory approval won’t be granted, in which case customers who have booked on these services would be protected:
“Affected customers will be given the option of a refund or re-accommodation on a suitable alternative flight at no additional charge and would not be out of pocket for any reasonably foreseeable costs if these proposed new services ultimately don’t get approved.”
“Having this court-enforceable undertaking that protects customers was important to our decision to allow Virgin Australia and Qatar Airways to start selling tickets now.”
Bottom line
The Australian government has tentatively given permission for Qatar Airways to greatly expand its service between Doha and Australia, by allowing Virgin Australia to market these long haul flights.
Currently Qatar Airways is limited to 28 weekly flights between Doha and Australia’s four main airports. Soon Qatar Airways will be able to also use the 28 weekly flights that Australian carriers can operate between the two countries, by having Virgin Australia market flights.
I’m happy to see this being tentatively approved, as it’s great for consumers. This will lead to increased competition, especially given how dominant Emirates and Qantas are with their current partnership.
What do you make of Qatar Airways doubling flights to Australia?
Just to be clear, at least three bodies were involved in the recent approval processes for Qatar flights.
Two years ago, Qatar Airways was refused permission to expand its bilateral agreement with Australia to land more flights. The refusal came from the Minister for Transport, who approves these agreements.
In the most recent case, the application to fly to Doha is by Virgin Australia, which will wet-lease Qatar Airways aircraft. The approval of this...
Just to be clear, at least three bodies were involved in the recent approval processes for Qatar flights.
Two years ago, Qatar Airways was refused permission to expand its bilateral agreement with Australia to land more flights. The refusal came from the Minister for Transport, who approves these agreements.
In the most recent case, the application to fly to Doha is by Virgin Australia, which will wet-lease Qatar Airways aircraft. The approval of this arrangement and consideration of any anti-competitive effect lies with the ACCC - The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is an independent Commonwealth statutory authority established in 1995. Its role is to administer and enforce the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 and other legislation, promoting competition, fair trading and regulating national infrastructure for the benefit of all Australians.
The 25% shareholding by Qatar Airways of Virgin Australia has to be approved by the FIRB — The Foreign Investment Review Board is a non-statutory advisory body established in 1976 to advise the Treasurer and the Government on Australia's Foreign Investment Policy. So the decision in this case is the Treasurers.
Three different bodies doing three different things, some with independence from government, and some part of the government. Part of the admittedly imperfect set of checks and balances that supports good government.
Say what you will about Delta. But the Delta/VA joint venture days were nice since VA arguably had the best TPAC product for Oceania. I remember them very fondly since they were my first ever flight to Australia.
I can only hope this means that VA is on track to more financial stability and has plans of growth and returns to US flights.
TD - isn't Delta interested in some of these frequencies too?
If I want to book one of these flights with points, I'd go through Virgin Australia? When are they on sale?
Yes, you’d use Virgin Australia’s Velocity Frequent Flyer program. There’a no word yet on when they’ll go on sale.
Beautiful. Gorgeous. Ingenious. More choices for Aussie travellers disillusioned by Qantas
Crazy how Qatar has to utilise a loophole just to increase flights because Qantas has such an iron fist on the government.
It makes no sense that Qatar couldn't increase flights when no other airline flies between the two countries.
And Qantas sure treats its One world Partner unfairly
Bring it on.
Stick it to Qantas.
This is all happening as a result of the Australian government's (arguably corrupt) refusal to allow Qatar more flights in its own right, while never giving any reason for its decision apart from "national interest". The backlash from the public was fierce, with questions being raised about the Australian government's cozy relationship with Qantas. So approving this may be the government's way of saving face ... on the other hand it still has a cozy...
This is all happening as a result of the Australian government's (arguably corrupt) refusal to allow Qatar more flights in its own right, while never giving any reason for its decision apart from "national interest". The backlash from the public was fierce, with questions being raised about the Australian government's cozy relationship with Qantas. So approving this may be the government's way of saving face ... on the other hand it still has a cozy relationship with Qantas, so there's the chance that the Australian government will find some way to reverse its "interim" decision, possibly after next year's election to minimise political damage.
"Corrupt" is a bit of a stretch, but there's no doubt that Qantas throwing around Chairman's Club memberships and the cost relationship between the current Prime Minister and their former CEO certainly went a long way towards getting them what they wanted.
I guess it all comes down to whether Australian customers will continue to fly the carrier in which many of them are either direct or indirect investors, or if they'll use an...
"Corrupt" is a bit of a stretch, but there's no doubt that Qantas throwing around Chairman's Club memberships and the cost relationship between the current Prime Minister and their former CEO certainly went a long way towards getting them what they wanted.
I guess it all comes down to whether Australian customers will continue to fly the carrier in which many of them are either direct or indirect investors, or if they'll use an airline owned by the totalitarian government of a theocratic state that only recently evicted a whole lot of Hamas terrorists they'd been sheltering within their borders. Personally, I'd swim to Europe before I flew Qatar Airways.
"Personally, I'd swim to Europe before I flew Qatar Airways."
Awesome, more inventory open for others! Love Qatar, and their excellent service/network!
You can support as many state sponsors of terrorism as you like. If you want to travel with the national airline of a country that holds foreign workers as virtual indentured slaves, then be my guest. If it doesn't bother you that they imprison gay men for being gay, go right ahead and enjoy the service. I won't be joining you, because I have ethics.
Nobody cares Pete. This is an aviation blog, all we care about is travel and Qatar have one of the best offerings in the world when it comes to flight meals, seats, in-flight service and schedule frequency.
No one care pete.
Stick to dreaded Qantas
Actually, plenty of people care... In fact, people like you flipping out whenever it's brought up shows that you care more than you might think you do as well. If you didn't then you wouldn't have bothered replying.
It's fine to have that view, as long as you don't turn a blind eye to, for example, Qantas' questionable ethics (illegally sacking workers, deliberately employing a huge chunk of its workforce on overseas contracts so it doesn't have to pay them as much, deliberately selling flights that have been cancelled, etc, etc). If you're being consistent, either you're not flying Qantas, or you're drawing an arbitrary line between ethics violations that are "acceptable" and...
It's fine to have that view, as long as you don't turn a blind eye to, for example, Qantas' questionable ethics (illegally sacking workers, deliberately employing a huge chunk of its workforce on overseas contracts so it doesn't have to pay them as much, deliberately selling flights that have been cancelled, etc, etc). If you're being consistent, either you're not flying Qantas, or you're drawing an arbitrary line between ethics violations that are "acceptable" and those that are not -- in which case you should accept it when others' arbitrary lines are different from yours.
Not “arguably” corrupt… DEFINITELY corrupt!
And I am Australian, I can tell you
Utter nonsense. The backlash wasn't "fierce" - most people showed no interest whatsoever and a lot of the public won't even know this happened.
You seem to be confusing the "chronically online" population with the general public.
Not to mention they absolutely did give multiple reasons. You can disagree with it if you are one of the people who think money is more important than morals or Qatar sexually assaulting numerous Australian women is...
Utter nonsense. The backlash wasn't "fierce" - most people showed no interest whatsoever and a lot of the public won't even know this happened.
You seem to be confusing the "chronically online" population with the general public.
Not to mention they absolutely did give multiple reasons. You can disagree with it if you are one of the people who think money is more important than morals or Qatar sexually assaulting numerous Australian women is no big deal (no need to feel embarrassed and hide it, you'd be in the majority), but claiming they gave no explanation beyond vaguely stating "national interest" is a flat out lie.