Qantas
Qantas Airways Ltd Chief Executive Alan Joyce speaks during a news conference in Sydney August 28, 2014. Qantas Airways Ltd on Thursday reported its biggest financial loss ever after taking a hefty A$2.6 billion writedown due to a company restructure that includes a re-valuing of its fleet. Qantas, which formed an alliance with Emirates Airline last year in an effort to trim losses on international routes, posted a statutory net loss of A$2.8 billion ($2.6 billion) for the year to June 30, compared with a restated profit of A$2 millon a year ago. Reuters/David Gray

Qantas Airways and Emirates will strengthen their three year old partnership for another three to five years by adding more flights and destinations. While Qantas will fly to new destinations in Europe using Dubai as its hub, Emirates will fly to more secondary cities of Australia. This was stated by Emirates president Tim Clark.

Recently, Clark and Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce had a meeting in Dubai to discuss the future of the alliance. Clark later told reporters that he was upbeat on the partnership despite the fall in the Australian dollar. Clark said the two airlines agreed to “map the way forward over the next three to five years.”

The coming phase of the partnership will see Emirates flying to many secondary cities in Australia and Clark put it as: “Darwin, Cairns, Broome, Alice Springs. Look, there are lots of possibilities.”

Emirates also announced its plans to upgrade the Melbourne-Singapore-Dubai flight to flagship A380 from the smaller Boeing 777 from March 2016, reported the Australian Financial Review.

Qantas flights to Europe

Regarding Qantas expanding its imprint in Europe, Qantas CEO had already pointed to its potential in flying to more European cities such as Frankfurt, Paris and Rome with the Boeing 787-9s fleet that Qantas will be receiving by 2017.

“The range and the economics of the 787-9 open up a lot of route opportunities, so we'll be looking at those as the delivery of our first aircraft gets closer,” a senior Qantas spokesman said. At present, Qantas operates one daily A380 flight from Sydney to London via Dubai and another one from Melbourne to London via Dubai.

Growing partnership

Emirates and Qantas started the revenue partnership in 2013 after Qantas dropped its 17-year tie up with British Airways and moved its London-bound hub to Dubai from Singapore.

The Emirates operates flights to all the major hubs of Australia-- Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth. “Sydney, Melbourne and Perth are going to be primary areas,” Clark said.

In another move for expansion, Qantas' low-cost arm Jetstar signed a code-share agreement with Chilean carrier LAN, by which the latter’s customers will be able to book Jetstar flights in Australia and New Zealand and can draw frequent flyer points.

Meanwhile, in terms of passenger carriage, Qantas is ahead of others and had the largest market share until July 2015. It had 15.6 percent of the total market share and Emirates had 9.6 percent share. Both Jetstar and Singapore Airlines got nine percent each while Virgin Australia took 7.3 percent market share, the Aviation business reported.

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