Qatar Airways To Form Alliance With Qantas

Doha-based Qatar Airways is in talks with Qantas to form a codeshare agreement on its Melbourne and Perth routes

Source ArabianBusiness.com

July 4, 2012

2 min read

Doha-based Qatar Airways is in talks with Qantas to form a codeshare agreement on its Melbourne and Perth routes, the airline's CEO has said.The carrier, which competes against Dubai-owned Emirates and Abu Dhabi's Etihad, has been in talks with the struggling Australian airline "for some time"."Most certainly we will have a partnership with Qantas," Akbar Al Baker said at the launch of its new service to Perth, the Herald Sun reported."Qantas under Alan Joyce has taken a very positive attitude towards Qatar and Emirates and we hope that both our airlines will be able to work with Qantas closely going forward. We can only make ourselves stronger with this sort of partnership."A codeshare agreement with Qantas would allow the Australian flag carrier to expand its European network and boost Qatar's options into Australia, added Al Baker.Qantas, struggling to grow its global operations amid rising competition from Gulf carriers and from Virgin Australia domestically, pulled out of a code share agreement with Etihad in 2010.The airline has also looked at extending its code share partnership with British Airways and Malaysian Airlines to give its customers more options into continental Europe via Asia.Etihad Airways last month acquired a 4.99 percent stake in Virgin Australia.