Parting ways

In a submission to the ACCC British Airways said its alliance with Qantas had been a “vital aspect’’ of the airline’s ability to offer services between Australia and Europe.

Of course that would come as no surprise as it is the only European airline, apart from Virgin Atlantic, offering services to Australia in its own right.

Over the years UTA, Lufthansa, Alitalia, Olympic, KLM et al have pulled out as Asian-based airlines such as Singapore Airlines, Thai, Cathay Pacific, and Malaysia Airlines came to dominate through the 1980s and 1990s.

BA said in its submission: “BA considers that it is increasingly challenging for an international airline to operate services on long-haul routes between the United Kingdom- Europe and Australia in the absence of such an alliance, due to persistent excess capacity and the nature of the substantial fixed costs involved in their operation. ’’ The precise details of BA’s submission are a mystery as it has blacked out some commercial elements including the impact of “the termination’’ of the Qantas-BA alliance.

BA argues, and rightly so, that it had relied on the revenue-sharing agreement with Qantas to gain better scheduling of flights and a more efficient use of aircraft time, as well as better connections in Singapore, Hong Kong and Bangkok.

The airline also said in the submission that the combination of Emirates, Qantas and Jetstar would give the new alliance “significant leverage’’ on trans-Tasman routes and would minimise BA’s ability to provide competing services in and out of New Zealand.

However, with over 77 years of experience flying between Australia and the UK, BA is reassuring passengers that it “remains committed” to the Australian market.

Parting ways BA says it will continue to serve Australian customers on its daily Sydney service with the BA015 service from London Heathrow to Sydney via Singapore and the reciprocal BA016 service from Sydney to London via Singapore to continue to operate as normal.

“British Airways is very proud of its long history with Australia and we remain committed to providing customers with the best of British service when travelling to the UK and Europe,” said Neil Ager, British Airways’ regional commercial manager, South West Pacific.

“We know we have many loyal customers in Australia, and they can continue to fly with confidence when they choose British Airways. ” But it says that customers due to travel after March 31 2013, whose bookings may be affected by changes to the joint business, will be contacted by BA shortly to discuss alternative travel options.

The reality is that BA used to fly to a host of Australian cities but now only flies to Sydney.

That also means leaving an aircraft on the ground for eight or nine hours.

Hard cold economic reality will test that commitment.

Why not codeshare with new oneworld partner Qatar via Doha when it almost certainly gets rights to Sydney? And that is what will happen, which will help Qatar increases its services to Australia. Qatar already serves Melbourne and Perth.

In fact it could well be that BA could give up its Sydney slot to Qatar for the codeshare! And with both airlines soon to get A380s maybe we will see an A380 codeshare to Sydney. n