Qantas-Emirates partnership takes off
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Qantas and Emirates have officially launched their joint venture, with the first Kangaroo Route flights from Sydney and Melbourne to London being re-routed through Dubai.
Having received final approval for the partnership from Australian regulators last week, the two airlines marked the start of the tie-up in grand style on 31 March 2013, with a joint Airbus A380 flyover at the Sydney Opera House.
The two airlines will now combine their operations, offering single ticket travel for customers on a range of routes from connecting Qantas’ flights to the Emirates network via Dubai International Airport. The carriers will work together in areas of flight scheduling and pricing, frequent flyer programmes and airport services.
Tim Clark, President Emirates Airline said: “Our two airlines offer the largest joint fleet of Airbus A380s and passengers will be welcomed through the world’s only all-A380 terminal at Dubai International Airport. A major benefit is the range of products we are offering frequent flyers. Customers of either airline can leverage many of their privileges when they fly on the joint network, including earning points, redeeming flights and accessing lounges.”
Combined, the two airlines will offer 98 flights a week between Australia and Dubai, and Qantas will continue to operate its A380 services from Sydney and Melbourne to London. As the Kangaroo Route flights have been routed away from East Asia, Qantas has already announced a series of new schedules, which it says offer “better frequency and increased dedicated capacity” for Singapore and Hong Kong.
“Our customers from Adelaide, Brisbane, Perth, Melbourne and Sydney now have one-stop access to 65 destinations in the Middle East, North Africa, the UK and Europe via the joint Qantas and Emirates network,” said Qantas’ group CEO Alan Joyce.
“Before today, the Qantas network offered five one-stop codeshare destinations into Europe and the UK with our partners. From today, we offer access to more than 30 destinations in Europe on the combined Qantas and Emirates network. The new network will cut average journey times by more than two hours from Melbourne and Sydney to the top 10 destinations in Europe,” he added.
The new Qantas flights to London will now depart Melbourne at 1625 and Sydney at 1705, and will stop in Dubai for approximately one hour 30 minutes before continuing to Heathrow.