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Qantas, Emirates to extend partnership

Qantas and Emirates will apply to extend their cornerstone partnership for another five years, resulting in the joint network offering customers with more choice as well as frequent flyer earn and redeem opportunities.
Subject to government and regulatory approval, both airlines will be making changes to reflect customer demand, new aircraft technology, and will play on each airline's respective network strengths. These changes will deliver additional benefits to the eight million passengers who have travelled more than 65 billion kilometres on the combined network since 2013.
Meeting in Sydney, to finalise the extension, both airlines agreed the first five years of the partnership had lived up to the promise of serving their customers better, together.
"The first five years of the Qantas-Emirates alliance has been a great success. Emirates has given Qantas customers an unbeatable network into Europe that is still growing. We want to keep leveraging this strength and offer additional travel options on Qantas, particularly through Asia," Qantas Group CEO, Alan Joyce, said. "Our partnership has evolved to a point where Qantas no longer needs to fly its own aircraft through Dubai, and that means we can redirect some of our A380 flying into Singapore and meet the strong demand we're seeing in Asia."
The adjustments will also deliver financial upside to both airlines, with Qantas annualised net benefit estimated at more than A$80 million from the fiscal year 2019 onwards.
The key change will see the airlines better leveraging each other's networks, by providing three options to Australia from Europe - via Dubai and Singapore, and direct to Perth. Qantas will re-route its daily London - Sydney A380 service via Singapore rather than Dubai and upgrade its existing daily Singapore-Melbourne flight from an A330 to an A380. As previously announced, Qantas' existing London-Dubai-Melbourne service will be replaced with its direct Dreamliner service flying London-Perth-Melbourne.
Customer demand for flights from Dubai to Australia with Emirates will remain well-served. Emirates will continue to operate 77 weekly services from Dubai to five cities - Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth, and Sydney - including seven daily A380 flights.
"Emirates has worked with Qantas on these network changes. We see an opportunity to offer customers an even stronger product proposition for travel to Dubai, and onward connectivity to our extensive network in Europe, Middle East and Africa. We will announce updates in the coming weeks," Sir Tim Clark, president of Emirates Airline, said.
The airlines will shortly seek re-authorisation from relevant regulators, including the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, to continue coordination of pricing, schedules, sales and tourism marketing, under an expanded partnership. Tickets for Qantas' new services will be available from tomorrow. Customers with existing bookings impacted by the changes will be re-accommodated onto the airlines' new services or will be given the option to change their flights.
- business@khaleejtimes.com