Qatar Airways Near to Acquiring up to 20% of Virgin Australia

[tmdl]

It’s got nothing to do with QF. I don’t know why you felt the need to mention them (or more likely, suggest my opinion isn’t valid because I don’t loathe QF the same as you. Having said that, I have not once ever flown QF to Europe. I’ve always used other airlines).

QR competes with many airlines, QF is just one, and really a minor competitor in the grand scheme of things. SQ, like EK, is a major competitor to their business model. People said EY would coexist with QR as VA partners but now they’re as good as gone.

I don’t know what a QR sale has to do with anything.

EY are also gone because a significant value they had IMO is their ability to redeem reward seats in J & F via VFF. I do agree that EY is a shell of what it used to be and its going to be very very interesting when Riyadh Air appear on the circuit if they try to take on EK, QR & EY head on

 

[jase05]

EY are also gone because a significant value they had IMO is their ability to redeem reward seats in J & F via VFF. I do agree that EY is a shell of what it used to be and its going to be very very interesting when Riyadh Air appear on the circuit if they try to take on EK, QR & EY head on

EY still have pretty good availability around a month out on plenty of routes

 

[tmdl]

EY still have pretty good availability around a month out on plenty of routes

But that's the only thing they offer as they apparently only now release 30 days out, If QR or SQ did that same thing imagine how bad it would be

 

[HS-TQE]

EY were gone as a VA major partner when VA demoted them to minor status the moment they've signed up QR and EY over time were gradually reduced to a domestic unilateral codeshare partnership (EY still codeshares on VAd but VA replaced EY with QR entirely in the outbound direction).

EY redemptions are still available on Velocity (the Velocity CEO recognised some of their FFs still preferred EY not long after they signed up QR so Velocity kept them as a redemption partner).

 

[ben95]

SQ, like EK, is a major competitor to their business model. People said EY would coexist with QR as VA partners but now they’re as good as gone.

SQ's in a different position than EY when compared to QR though. EY's network is largley is subset of QR and their role is largely the same in their optimal onward destinations where as SQ is an important partnet for VA in Asia and China, especially without the HNA Group as redemption partner. The VFF program would lose a lot of value if it were to lose SQ or have restrictions put in place - and I'm not sure a 20% stake by QR would be enough for Bain to take that hit.

It appears that VA already tries to funnel traffic onto QR operated flights to Europe. I clicked through a few dates for next month and found all J inventory blocked out on SQ operated VA coded flights. Maybe that's a sign that VA is prioritising QR is the Europen direction?

 

[justinbrett]

SQ's in a different position than EY when compared to QR though. EY's network is largley is subset of QR and their role is largely the same in their optimal onward destinations where as SQ is an important partnet for VA in Asia and China, especially without the HNA Group as redemption partner. The VFF program would lose a lot of value if it were to lose SQ or have restrictions put in place - and I'm not sure a 20% stake by QR would be enough for Bain to take that hit.

It appears that VA already tries to funnel traffic onto QR operated flights to Europe. I clicked through a few dates for next month and found all J inventory blocked out on SQ operated VA coded flights. Maybe that's a sign that VA is prioritising QR is the Europen direction?

Yes, I agree. SQ serves both the Asian and the European markets. I don’t think QR cares too much about VA using SQ for Asian routes, but I think it’s perfectly possible they could carve Europe out of the agreement to force VA pax on QR, similar to how the QF/EK partnership excludes the Americas.