Virgin boss rubbishes Joyce’s Qatar claims
Virgin Australia chief Jayne Hrdlicka has rubbished Qantas boss Alan Joyce’s claims that Qatar Airways’ application to fly extra international services would have created “market distortion”, arguing that the extra seats would have brought down the prices of airfares. In a two-hour grilling from the Senate committee on the cost of living crisis on Monday, Joyce defended the government’s decision to reject Qatar Airways’ application, which would have added 800,000 to 1m additional seats between Australia, Doha and Europe each year. Joyce said Qantas made a submission to the federal government last October that Qatar Airways doubling its services would “distort the market” by hurting the recovering capacity of other airlines. But Hrdlicka on Tuesday said adding additional seats would push down sky-high overseas airfares, in turn increasing demand for international travel. Virgin has a codeshare partnership with Qatar Airways, which means it would have profited from the additional bilateral air rights. Virgin’s market share on the Australia, Europe and Middle East routes would have risen from 25 to 27%. Rival Qantas, which has the same codeshare arrangement with Emirates, sits at 43% across those routes. “The reality is, that many of those airlines that provided those seats pre-COVID won’t recover that capacity back into Australia, those seats won’t come back. It’s really important that we take advantage of every opportunity to get more seats into and out of Australia as fast as we possibly can,” she told ABC’s RN Breakfast program. Hrdlicka also refuted Joyce’s assertion that Qatar Airways could fly bigger aircraft to smaller cities, like Adelaide and Darwin, if it really wanted to boost seat capacity in Australia. “The constraints are in these major capital cities, and so it’s a bit of an obfuscation to say ‘oh, fly into places where we don’t have enough people in Australia to support those seats’,” Hrdlicka said. Additional seats need to be added to the major capital cities of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, where the volume of demand is, she added.<br/>
https://portal.staralliance.com/cms/news/hot-topics/2023-08-29/oneworld/virgin-boss-rubbishes-joyce2019s-qatar-claims
https://portal.staralliance.com/cms/logo.png
Virgin boss rubbishes Joyce’s Qatar claims
Virgin Australia chief Jayne Hrdlicka has rubbished Qantas boss Alan Joyce’s claims that Qatar Airways’ application to fly extra international services would have created “market distortion”, arguing that the extra seats would have brought down the prices of airfares. In a two-hour grilling from the Senate committee on the cost of living crisis on Monday, Joyce defended the government’s decision to reject Qatar Airways’ application, which would have added 800,000 to 1m additional seats between Australia, Doha and Europe each year. Joyce said Qantas made a submission to the federal government last October that Qatar Airways doubling its services would “distort the market” by hurting the recovering capacity of other airlines. But Hrdlicka on Tuesday said adding additional seats would push down sky-high overseas airfares, in turn increasing demand for international travel. Virgin has a codeshare partnership with Qatar Airways, which means it would have profited from the additional bilateral air rights. Virgin’s market share on the Australia, Europe and Middle East routes would have risen from 25 to 27%. Rival Qantas, which has the same codeshare arrangement with Emirates, sits at 43% across those routes. “The reality is, that many of those airlines that provided those seats pre-COVID won’t recover that capacity back into Australia, those seats won’t come back. It’s really important that we take advantage of every opportunity to get more seats into and out of Australia as fast as we possibly can,” she told ABC’s RN Breakfast program. Hrdlicka also refuted Joyce’s assertion that Qatar Airways could fly bigger aircraft to smaller cities, like Adelaide and Darwin, if it really wanted to boost seat capacity in Australia. “The constraints are in these major capital cities, and so it’s a bit of an obfuscation to say ‘oh, fly into places where we don’t have enough people in Australia to support those seats’,” Hrdlicka said. Additional seats need to be added to the major capital cities of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, where the volume of demand is, she added.<br/>
