Qantas will switch its Sydney-Dubai-London flights to operate via Singapore from 25 March 2018, under a renewed partnership with Emirates.
The two airlines will shortly file for regulatory clearance to extend the partnership for another five years, which Qantas says will deliver it annualised net benefits of more than A$80 million ($63.3 million) from the 2019 fiscal year onwards.
The key change to the partnership will see Qantas’s daily A380 service to London re-routed via Singapore. Together with its announced plans to drop its Melbourne-Dubai-London services from next March, Qantas' aircraft will no longer fly into the hub of its partner.
“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,” says Qantas chief Alan Joyce.
Joyce adds, however, that passengers travelling to other European destinations will still be served via the Dubai hub through codeshares on Emirates’ services.
The change to Sydney-London, will also see Qantas upgauge its Melbourne-Singapore services to be operated by A380s, freeing up an A330 to launch a new Asian route.
Emirates president Tim Clark says that his carrier has worked closely with Qantas on the changes, and it remains strongly committed to the Australian market through the partnership.
“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,” he adds.
FlightGlobal schedules show that Emirates operates 98 flights per week to Australia, mostly from Dubai to the major cities of Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Brisbane and Adelaide. It also operates some fifth-freedom services onwards to Auckland and Christchurch, and a daily Dubai-Bangkok-Sydney service.
Source: Cirium Dashboard
