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British Airways and Qatar Airways plan a JV to Adelaide, Canberra, Melbourne and Perth

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British Airways and Qatar Airways have submitted a request to the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission to form a joint venture on nine routes to Australia from the UK.

Sydney is NOT included – I think both airlines know that such a request would be thrown out as damaging to competition.  Instead, it will cover the following routes:

  • Adelaide – Manchester
  • Adelaide – London
  • Canberra – London

  • Melbourne – London
  • Melbourne – Edinburgh
  • Melbourne – Manchester
  • Perth – London
  • Perth – Edinburgh
  • Perth – Manchester

What is a little odd about this joint venture is that British Airways brings virtually nothing to the party EXCEPT for its brand.  Apart from the BA flight to Doha, every other flight in the joint venture will be operated by Qatar Airways.

At present, anyone looking to travel from London to Adelaide would be routed on British Airways to Sydney and then onto a Qantas codeshare.  British Airways believes it can make more money by filtering passengers onto a Qatar Airways flight in Doha.  As this is a joint venture, rather than just a codeshare, British Airways should make more money.

There would be very little obvious difference if the joint venture was approved.  There may be some retiming of flights so that connection times in Doha are minimised.  British Airways Executive Club status members would receive a tier bonus on the Qatar Airways service from Doha, which is not currently offered.  Apart from that …. little changes.

This doesn’t mean that approval for the joint venture is a given, of course, since it reduces competition into the four Australian cities.  It may also raise questions over the future of the British Airways Sydney service, with many potential passengers planning to connect onwards now siphoned off via Doha instead.

You can find out more on the ACCC website here.

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Category

British Airways and Avios, Qatar Airways and Privilege Club

Comments (149)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Harry T says:
    25 Jan25 January 13:46

    Once saw the GTSP guy call someone a wanker in the comments on his own blog.

    • Lady London says:
      25 Jan25 January 18:47

      I don’t see that blog much but have never seen Gilbert respond rudely unless sorely provoked. He has come up with many useful points of view, does some pretty honest disclosure and provides some interesting sets of articles that other bloggers don’t. For example his ’48 hours in’ series is always worth checking if going to a new city (or even a city you know) in case there’s something you’ve missed.

      Yes some of his headlines and coverage is a little more ‘breathless’ than is the British taste. But give the guy a break. He’s an American married to a Brit and adds more value in an honest way than many bloggers out there.

    • Shoestring says:
      25 Jan25 January 19:11

      Aussies & Kiwis call people a w***** at the slightest drop of a hat, I heard a mainstream radio jock calling a phone-in listener precisely that in Queensland, it has less sweary impact/ rudeness over there

  • Hardpack says:
    25 Jan25 January 14:39

    And in the new ba app if you select reward flights to buy them, I get a German ba site not the uk version

  • Brighton Belle says:
    25 Jan25 January 15:47

    This is as reasonable as putting a stone in my shoe and congratulating me on learning to walk with a limp. When companies hide behind spin they take us for fools.

  • TigerTanaka says:
    25 Jan25 January 17:02

    Good that you covered the new Teesside routes, up here we are very excited about LCY in particular. Let’s see what the fares are like…

  • Will says:
    25 Jan25 January 17:07

    If you disregard the fact that you could previously pay hmrc for free, it is a feature as it enables you to pay your personal tax bill on credit card which you otherwise cannot do and on commercial cards at a reduced rate.

  • jc says:
    25 Jan25 January 17:18

    I agree with Will. Makes a lot of sense if you were coming across it for the first time. Just a shame for those who enjoyed the free days

  • BJ says:
    25 Jan25 January 17:40

    OT @Rob/Rhys, what’s happened to the Inverness articles, Courtyard not open yet?

  • Shoestring says:
    25 Jan25 January 19:07

    read that on my free access to DT / PressReader that I told everybody about & how to access for free themselves 🙂

    Not much to the story: it’s Revolut getting suspicious about money movements, acting fairly heavy-handedly in freezing a/cs (but they *have* to) and being pretty slow in resolving matters/ very poor customer support. The 2 main people in the story were moving £30K and £15K, arousing suspicions it seems!

    • Anna says:
      25 Jan25 January 20:24

      Dirk de Groot – that could definitely be a HFP moniker!

    • Brighton Belle says:
      25 Jan25 January 20:25

      I made a note of your info when I last saw it but the code 800***123 doesn’t to seem to work or at least I am inputting it into the Barcode field wrong

    • Don says:
      25 Jan25 January 20:31

      I can’t get a combination of 800147XXX where XXX is random numbers to work?

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

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