Qantas, Emirates extend partnership for five more years, to 2028
The airlines say more than 13 million passengers have travelled on their joint network since 2013.
By David Flynn, October 4 2021
Qantas and Emirates will extend their partnership to 2028, making it 15 years since the two airlines joined forces – a period which briefly saw Qantas move its Kangaroo Route stopover from Singapore to Dubai.
The gleaming city in the sand isn't making a comeback for those Sydney-London or Melbourne-London flights, but the ongoing agreement continues to make Emirates' network of over 50 cities in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa available to Qantas travellers via codeshare flights.
The airlines say more than 13 million passengers have travelled on the joint network – amounting to over 87 billon kilometres – since 2013.
Qantas says that on average, more than 13,000 Emirates passengers have travelled on Qantas' domestic and regional services within Australia each month.
Qantas Group CEO Alan Joyce and Emirates President Sir Tim Clark inked the deal at today's annual general meeting of the International Air Transport Association, held in Boston.
"This marks the continuation of one of the most significant bilateral partnerships in aviation," remarked Qantas Group CEO Alan Joyce after his flourish of the pen.
"The premise of our partnership with Emirates has always been that no airline can fly everywhere but combined we can fly to most of the places our joint customers want to travel to, and that we treat each other’s customers as our own."
Joyce added that with the international aviation market set to take take years to fully recover from the pandemic, "close collaboration between airline partners is going to be more important than ever."
For his part, Emirates President Sir Tim Clark talked up the benefits for the Gulf carrier's passengers travelling to and from Australia, including "the best connections and frequent flyer benefits."
"As borders re-open, we look forward to restoring our Australian flight schedules including our popular A380 services, and to welcoming customers to experience our best-in-class partnership for many more years to come."
David Flynn is the Editor-in-Chief of Executive Traveller and a bit of a travel tragic with a weakness for good coffee, shopping and lychee martinis.
24 Aug 2011
Total posts 1207
The EK partnership is essential for QF to offer any reasonable coverage of continental Europe which they haven't served in their own right since 2013 when the FRA service was abandoned.
EK offers great non-stop services from DXB throughout Europe and the JV allows QF to sell these all with their own code and lounge access using EK's lounges. Even Qantas Club members get access to EK's DXB lounges but not to any of their other lounges.
DXB is a bit of a zoo but well worth it compared with overflying Europe and having to backtrack from LHR on BA.
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
26 Nov 2012
Total posts 125
I know it was never going to happen, but I would have so much liked them to move to QR. As reeves35 says, DXB is a zoo and IMHO EK J is a bling-bus.
On a more constructive note, based on those numbers, EK is filling nearly 70 x 737s a month. That’s around 2.3 full 737s a day. That’s a lot of pax and no wonder they re-signed.
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
04 Mar 2014
Total posts 204
I had hoped they would swap EK for QR.
QF - Red
23 Nov 2012
Total posts 38
Has anyone been able to access lounges at dxb when connecting from an EK flight to an EK flight operated by fly dubai? with qantas status?
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