Qantas Airways, Australia’s national airline, has begun to accept bookings for its newly expanded network, in partnership with UAE-based Emirates Airlines.
The partnership will be operating its expanded network from March 2013, and has received an interim authorisation from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC).
The airline’s chief executive officer, Simon Hickey, said, ‘The feedback from customers since the Qantas and Emirates partnership was announced has been fantastic, so we are pleased people can start booking from today.
No airline can fly everywhere but the combined Qantas and Emirates network means our customers can fly to a wide range of destinations and earn frequent flyer points in the process.
One of the main advantages our customers will notice is one-stop access to a much wider range of cities across Europe via Dubai, rather than having to fly to London and backtrack.’
Tim Clark, the president of Emirates Airline, said, ‘The interim approval clears the way for Emirates and Qantas to be geared up to provide customers with a unified experience from day one. The Emirates and Qantas partnership will provide customers unparalleled access to the respective networks and services including the A380 experience.
This approval comes two weeks after our first aircraft departed from Concourse A at Dubai Airport, the world’s only purpose-built A380 concourse and the ‘home of the Emirates A380′.
Qantas’ A380 passengers flying in from Australia will be able to enjoy the unrivalled experience in terms of comfort, convenience and choice of facilities in Concourse A, before boarding their flights to our rapidly expanding European network or our destinations in the Middle East and Africa.’
