Qatar Airways to acquire 25% of Virgin Australia

[MooTime]

These are the same proposed VA services to Doha that will receive only 50% Status Credits as previously.

Bringing on new services that get next to nothing in terms of SC...way to go VA management, when your on a roll.

 

[elanshin]

Fact: VA's services to Abu Dhabi failed.
Fact: QF discontinued its flights to Dubai (whether you want to call that a "failure" or not is debatable and probably depends on your definitions).

What those things tell us is that the success of VA's flights to Doha is not the "slam dunk" that some people seem to think it will be.

This is a risk -- yes, a calculated one, and a risk that will (in my opinion) probably succeed, but a risk nevertheless. I can't see why calling it a "toe in the water" is inappropriate.

Serious question to @justinbrett and @elanshin : in the light of VA's failed flights to Abu Dhabi, what makes you so certain that this time things will be totally different?

It's not that VA will succeed flying to DOH. Firstly current VA has no aspirations for long haul flying by themselves right now. This isn't VA deciding to try it out, this is QR paying VA to get around QR's own restrictions. You can be sure that on QR's own booking you'll see all the VA flights as codeshares.

Thats why there's a lot of the thread asking for it to be wet-leased transition into dry lease guarantee. That way VA would actively need to be involved for both their own staff and medium term strategies.

The other part is that this also now not just about VA flying to DOH successfully. It is also about QR locking up VA as a partner.

The ME is getting more competition especially for Australia over the next few years and this is QR moving first locking up the domestic feeder. Again great for QR, great for Bain, not necessarily so in the medium term for VA flyers.

If QR decides hey we don't need this anymore (be it route doing poorly or Aus government grants more slots) they could easily at a flip just not continue wet leasing to VA at the end of the agreement and now VA is in a worse position.

It's fundamentally different to VA investing (and taking on risk) with their own metal flying to DOH.

 

[justinbrett]

Fact: VA's services to Abu Dhabi failed.
Fact: QF discontinued its flights to Dubai (whether you want to call that a "failure" or not is debatable and probably depends on your definitions).

What those things tell us is that the success of VA's flights to Doha is not the "slam dunk" that some people seem to think it will be.

This is a risk -- yes, a calculated one, and a risk that will (in my opinion) probably succeed, but a risk nevertheless. I can't see why calling it a "toe in the water" is inappropriate.

Serious question to @justinbrett and @elanshin : in the light of VA's failed flights to Abu Dhabi, what makes you so certain that this time things will be totally different?

Because VA isn’t flying to DOH. QR is.

The rest is just a sham to increase capacity. Surely you must see that? It seems everyone else can.

 

[elanshin]

VA could legitimately be a sought after partner if they were neutral and have TK (and probably RX) onboard and they'd have a huge selection of choice to fly to Europe compared with QF/EK.

I wonder if this move will prompt SQ to aggressively push KF into Australia and just reduce their partnership with VA to codeshare and interline agreements. That would massively hurt VA/VFF if KF is a much easier currency to earn in Australia.

 

[justinbrett]

So to recap (intl airlines only):

Airlines cut completely:
EY
SA
VS

Airlines cut partially:
SQ

Airlines likely to be cut:
HA

No change (for now):
UA
NH
AC
HU
HX
JD

The new master:
QR

 

[HS-TQE]

I wonder if this move will prompt SQ to aggressively push KF into Australia and just reduce their partnership with VA to codeshare and interline agreements. That would massively hurt VA/VFF if KF is a much easier currency to earn in Australia

The current SQ/VA partnership is currently just a codeshare/FF and interline arrangement.

Not sure if deleting FF/Lounge access from the existing SQ/VA partnership would achieve for SQ apart from more lounge space by the removal of VA/VFF elites.

KF has expiry dates for points, so SQ/KF does have a bit of work to make KF more attractive than VFF (or QFF)