News out this morning that the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has granted interim authorisation to partnership between Virgin Australia and Qatar Airways. This follows an application made to the ACCC earlier this year.
Under the agreement Virgin Australia will have 28 flights a week between Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth to Doha. These flights will use Qatar Airways’ aircraft and crew under a ‘wet lease’ arrangement. These flights will carry a ‘VA’ flight number, although Qatar will codeshare on the flights.
The flights to Doha from Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane are set to launch in June 2025, with flights from Perth following in November 2025.
Flight Frequencies
As the approval gives Virgin Australia and Qatar Airways the ability to co-ordinate their schedules it is best to look at the combined operations of the airlines. As such, the combined flight frequencies will be
- Sydney-Doha Two daily flight from June 2025
- Melbourne-Doha Three daily flights from June 2025. This is an increase from the current two flights per day, although one of those flights continues from/to Adelaide.
- Brisbane-Doha Two daily flights from June 2025,
- Perth-Doha Two daily flights from November 2025
More boxes to tick
While this is an important step in the partnership, more approvals are needed. Firstly, this is an interim authorisation – it was sought to allow sales of tickets to commence. As per the ACCC Deputy Chair Keogh
We consider that granting interim authorization now will allow Qatar Airways and Virgin Australia the lead time to undertake the necessary planning discussions, marketing, selling, and system alignment in preparation for Virgin Australia to commence flying the new services by June 2025.
That said, the ACCC has indicated that it is still considering a range of issues around the proposal. As such, any final authorisation may come with some conditions attached.
Other that that, the Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB) still needs to sign off on the Qatar taking a 25% stake in Virgin Australia.
Customers protected
As this deal could still fall over, the ACCC has extracted a court enforceable undertaking to protect customers buying tickets. In the event that the flights never get off the ground, affected customers will be offered refunds or alternative flights at no additional cost. This undertaking has been signed by both Virgin Australia and Qatar Airways, and was a condition of the interim authorisation.
Effect on other partners
In a response to the ACCC, Virgin outlined the effects this partnership would have on its other partners. There were basically two:
- Virgin Australia would terminate its limited remaining partnership with Etihad Airways. However, Etihad Airways seems to have got in first and announced the end of the partnership from June 2025.
- Virgin Australia would amend its codeshare agreement with Singapore Airlines to remove EMEA as codeshare destinations.
There were no other changes seen with partners such as Virgin Atlantic and South African Airways, and these would continue as they do now.
Final Words
At the end of the day, this is really about Qatar getting more flights to Australia. Sort of a Plan B if you will. It comes after their direct request for more flights was denied.
That said, it is also a toe in the water for Virgin Australia establishing a long haul operation. I would suspect that any extension of the wet lease would be difficult to achieve.
So, in reality, both Qatar Airways and Virgin Australia should be happy with this achievement. It brings both of them closer to their goals.
