Qantas and Emirates link up

Stinicker

http://www.theage.com.au/business/qantas-emirates-seal-extensive-alliance-20120906-25fhm.html#poll

The end of the Singapore stop-over on the Kangaroo route, British Airways will suffer alot because of this and will most likely pull out of Australia entirely leaving Virgin Atlantic as the last European airline to serve the continent down under.

I don't think it is all the good news for travellers, flying 14+ hours to Dubai from Sydney would be hard compared to 10hr jump to Singapore. Singapore is also well served from the smaller Australian cities like Brisbane and Perth etc. and having to fly Qantas LHR-DXB-MEL-PER is a totally illogical routing to fly to Perth for example.

On the flip side Qantas has been hemorrhaging money lately so if it helps keep the airline aloft then I'm all for it. Singapore airport will lose alot of traffic though.

lufties

I agree with you, scrapping the Singers route will have a bit impact, I've stopped over in both Dubai and Singapore and the latter is a lap of luxury compared to DXB. At SIN, you have much more comfort and relaxation, DXB is a nightmare in my experience, massive qeues in security,passport control,toilets etc..very surprised at this move by QF, but sure they are at a loose end all the same.

You do know that EK is now connected to all the major cities in Oz, including Perth, which means Dublin to Perth in 2 flights.

Its a shame though that virgin are the only european carrier flying to Australia, sign of the times I guess.

Stinicker

lufties wrote: »

I agree with you, scrapping the Singers route will have a bit impact, I've stopped over in both Dubai and Singapore and the latter is a lap of luxury compared to DXB. At SIN, you have much more comfort and relaxation, DXB is a nightmare in my experience, massive qeues in security,passport control,toilets etc..very surprised at this move by QF, but sure they are at a loose end all the same.

You do know that EK is now connected to all the major cities in Oz, including Perth, which means Dublin to Perth in 2 flights.

Its a shame though that virgin are the only european carrier flying to Australia, sign of the times I guess.

Agree, I flew Emirates this year through Dubai to Malaysia and whilst they have a good repuation I think this is only in first class, Dubai airport is overcrowded and is wretched place to be. I flew through Singapore and made a stop over there for 3 days with Qantas on a RTW ticket in 2010 and then flew down to Perth afterwards and all my flights were with Qantas and I could never fault them, Emirates however, don't even get me started and their sardine can like 777's :mad:

lufties

Stinicker wrote: »

lufties wrote: »

I agree with you, scrapping the Singers route will have a bit impact, I've stopped over in both Dubai and Singapore and the latter is a lap of luxury compared to DXB. At SIN, you have much more comfort and relaxation, DXB is a nightmare in my experience, massive qeues in security,passport control,toilets etc..very surprised at this move by QF, but sure they are at a loose end all the same.

You do know that EK is now connected to all the major cities in Oz, including Perth, which means Dublin to Perth in 2 flights.

Its a shame though that virgin are the only european carrier flying to Australia, sign of the times I guess.

Agree, I flew Emirates this year through Dubai to Malaysia and whilst they have a good repuation I think this is only in first class, Dubai airport is overcrowded and is wretched place to be. I flew through Singapore and made a stop over there for 3 days with Qantas on a RTW ticket in 2010 and then flew down to Perth afterwards and all my flights were with Qantas and I could never fault them, Emirates however, don't even get me started and their sardine can like 777's :mad:

Yeah I can't fault qantas, I did a stop over in Sing, start of 2010 on the way to Sydney, when I arrived I charged my phone, had a sleep in a hotel room for a few hours, used free internet and even got a haircut...I actually got so carried away that I lost track of time and missed my flight as I was too late checking in...in the end qantas put me on a flight in the morning for free, which was the airbus a380 experience..not many airlines are that hospitable especially since it was my own fault in the first place.

brandon_flowers

Stinicker wrote: »

http://www.theage.com.au/business/qantas-emirates-seal-extensive-alliance-20120906-25fhm.html#poll



I don't think it is all the good news for travellers, flying 14+ hours to Dubai from Sydney would be hard compared to 10hr jump to Singapore. .

For Irish travellers at least it removes the need to fly to LHR then SIN and onto Melbourne, Perth wherever. This reduces travel time by at least 3 hours and LHR isn't much of a grade above DXB to be fair.

I would prefer to take the pain of DUB-DXB-MEL before using LHR (from an Irish perspective).

Then again I would probably fly with Etihad instead.

basill

I think the point of the tie up is for Qantas to become a virtual airline selling tickets and taking a cut. No doubt there will be redundancies to follow. Pax will now go direct from DXB to their destination in Oz and Qantas will just feed directly into the Middle East hub. Of course you still have the choice of flying with Qantas to SYD and then onto somewhere in Oz but most will opt for direct services for the sake of convenience.

Its similar in some ways to the potential for the Etihad tie up here in Dublin for AL. We could end up flying into the Middle East and taking their pax all over the US and Canada.

BA will be suffering from the fallout that is for sure.

ballooba

It would be great to have an alternative to EY/DJ to keep them honest, but I would never willingly fly Qantas. I've never flown with Emirates yet. I wonder would any of the Asian airlines ever fly direct to Ireland to win back this business. Or are we too small a market?

brandon_flowers

ballooba wrote: »

It would be great to have an alternative to EY/DJ to keep them honest, but I would never willingly fly Qantas. I've never flown with Emirates yet. I wonder would any of the Asian airlines ever fly direct to Ireland to win back this business. Or are we too small a market?

Any particular reason? For me they are one of the best in the business.

And I do think we are two small a market. Singapore, Cathay, Malaysia would use pretty big aircraft and I doubt they could fill them often enough from Ireland to Asia. EK and EY now have that avenue sown up.

ballooba

brandon_flowers wrote: »

Any particular reason? For me they are one of the best in the business.

Every time I fly Qantas I'm left angry and disappointed. Whether it's their terrible food, their inconsiderate staff and clientele (both with a sense of entitlement) or their snails pace of work (boarding, leaving the gate, service, disembarkment). Something always happens to sully the experience. No reason to fly with them when DJ/EY compete on most routes.

Turbine

basill wrote: »

I think the point of the tie up is for Qantas to become a virtual airline selling tickets and taking a cut. No doubt there will be redundancies to follow. Pax will now go direct from DXB to their destination in Oz and Qantas will just feed directly into the Middle East hub. Of course you still have the choice of flying with Qantas to SYD and then onto somewhere in Oz but most will opt for direct services for the sake of convenience.

Qantas will still be flying to Europe on their own metal, they're just transferring their Europe flights to transfer through DXB instead of SIN. They're pulling their FRA route, but that was going to happen anyway as they were losing money on the route and the loads were poor.

My own interpretation of this agreement is that each airline will sell seats of both carriers and coordinate on scheduling, as well as pooling costs and revenue. So when you go to book a flight from LHR-SYD you could end up on either carrier, it'll just depend on the flight times you choose, similar to the tie-up between American Airlines and BA on transatlantic routes. This is known as 'metal neutrality'.

So this definitely won't be Qantas giving up market share just to earn a franchise fee. Qantas have seen the growth of Emirates on Australian routes, and Virgin Australia had already agreed a tie-up with Etihad, so they had to do the same with Emirates if they stood any chance of competing. By entering into an alliance with Emirates, Qantas have actually secured their future in the European market because they no longer have to look over their shoulder while their biggest competitor eats away at their market share. Qantas can now use Dubai as a base to grow its European network in the years to come. Unlike Emirates, which faces bilateral restrictions in Europe, Qantas has bilateral agreements with most European countries that it doesn't currently serve. So Emirates could use Qantas as a means to grow its European network from Dubai. So its a win-win for both airlines.

This was definitely a smart move by Alan Joyce and one that will definitely pay dividends in the years to come.

lufties

I actually had an interview 2 years ago for a job as a Maintenance Engineer with QF in Singapore, guess I'm lucky I wasnt successful :eek:

No way I'd go working in the sand pit :cool:

lufties

Turbine wrote: »

Qantas will still be flying to Europe on their own metal, they're just transferring their Europe flights to transfer through DXB instead of SIN. They're pulling their FRA route, but that was going to happen anyway as they were losing money on the route and the loads were poor.

Didnt know they were pulling FRA, will miss seeing the auld red tail coming in every day
they currently their A380s in FRA for heavy maintenance though.

Marcusm

Qantas will continue at least one through flight to LHR fr the foreseeable future but as with its modified JSA with BA over the last year or so, it will concentrate on the final leg (which in this case will be an extremely long final leg) which will permit it to reduce the number o f crew at out stations. FRA could barely justify a daily service on its own hinterland and will have counted on positioning flights into FRA; given EK's rapidly increasing Euro footprint, this flight will be avoided with no effective penalty (time wise) for those heading to Aus. For non hub locations (such as IRL), EK/EY provides good coverage to Far East as well as Aus with minimal time penalties when compared with transiting London, FRA, AMS, CDG etc.

Has the new Dubai airport opened? That will make a vast difference to the customer experience although I don't know if some will have to transit both airports.