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Qatar Airways is reportedly in talks to buy a stake in codeshare partner Virgin Australia.
Sources cited in the Australian Financial Review claimed the Qatari flag carrier, which has been angling to increase its presence in Australia but was last year rebuffed by the Federal Government, could be interested in buying up to 20 per cent of Virgin from current owner Bain Capital.
The AFR also claims two sources “close to the transaction” had considered selling a stake in Virgin Australia to Singapore Airlines, though this ultimately did not go ahead.
While Qatar Airways – which is owned by the Qatari government – could officially make its intentions known as early as next week, the Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB) would need to green-light the transaction, meaning it could be blocked. Australian Aviation understands that the FIRB does not comment on individual cases.
Qatar already has a codeshare partnership with Virgin Australia, pitting both airlines against the codeshare agreement between Qantas and Dubai-based carrier Emirates.
The news comes as Qatar Airways is reportedly once again in talks with the Federal Government to double its daily flights into Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth, which last year kicked off a political firestorm when Transport Minister Catherine King denied permission citing “national interest” grounds.
As reported in the AFR earlier this month, Qatar Airways’ new CEO, Badr Mohammed Al Meer, told media at the IATA conference in Dubai that talks appeared to be going well.
“We continue our communication with the Australian government and we see it moving in a positive way,” he said.
“Hopefully in the next few months we will get some positive news from Australia and we’re looking forward to expanding and growing more in the Australian market, which will always benefit the Australian community and customers.”
The Transport Minister in November hit back against accusations she was protecting Qantas by knocking back Qatar’s request, saying she “did not take the commercial interests of either Qantas or Virgin into consideration” when making the decision.
“That national interest, as I’ve said very publicly before, includes how is aviation overall recovering after Covid? What are the important elements of aviation [that] we as a nation need to make sure we have in times of emergency? We’ve had to use that recently with evacuating people out of Israel and out of Gaza,” she said.
“What do we need as a nation to be able to hold on to? What is happening in terms of competition overall? They are some of the things I took into consideration when we were asked for basically unprecedented amount of access by Qatar Airways into our aviation market.”
The office of Minister King has been contacted for comment.
