In July 2013 Qantas pledged to maintain "existing capacity on trans-Tasman routes that both Qantas and Emirates fly" as a condition of approval for its partnership with Emirates, and the airline says it will continue to comply with that requirement.Most if not all of these flights are operated by Jetconnect the New Zealand based subsidiary airline that has a lower cost base than Qantas itself.
The new Auckland-Perth service will operate during the holiday season with a twice-weekly A330 service from early December this year through to 1 February 2014.As stated these flights will operate with an international configured Airbus A330 which gives Business travelers the option of lie flat seats which will be useful on the overnight PER-AKL leg.
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The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has signalled in a draft ruling that it will approve the tie-up for another three years - two years less than the airlines were seeking.Further to the shorter approval length the ACCC will seek to impose capacity conditions on eight routes, this will prevent the two airlines from reducing current capacity on these routes including two highlighted by the ACCC Melbourne-Christchurch and Sydney-Dunedin.
The airlines will also have to provide performance data to help the ACCC decide whether their alliance has had an ''adverse effect on competition more generally''.As expected the airlines will push for the ACCC to extend the approval to the 5 year term they originally sought as well as pushing for the capacity conditions to be dropped. Despite the tentative approval from the ACCC the alliance is still subject to approval or rejection by the New Zealand Department of Transport, although I expect them to agree with and approve the ACCC decision and conditions.
Fyfe said despite all those in the flight operations team working hard last week to maintain safe operations "behind the scenes however we were constantly battling a series of malicious rumours that emerged from the Australian market and fed to media, suggesting that Air New Zealand had six aircraft in the hangar with ash damage, an aircraft grounded in Australia with ash damage and an aircraft requiring a nose cone replacement as a result of ash damage''.read the full story from stuff.co.nz HERE
Asked if the Australian boss had referred to Air New Zealand and Virgin airlines having issues, Qantas said Joyce ''never said that''.Read the story from stuff.co.nz HERE
''No-one at Qantas, including Alan Joyce, has said or implied at any point that other airlines are operating unsafely. We have simply stated our policy and noted that other airlines have their own processes,'' an Australian-based Qantas spokesperson said.
