Al Baker minaccia di uscire da Oneworld

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IAG to preserve Qatar ties if carrier quits Oneworld

IAG expects to maintain its co-operation with Qatar Airways, even as it predicts that the Middle Eastern carrier will drop out of the Oneworld alliance.
Qatar Airways chief executive Akbar Al Baker had revealed to FlightGlobal in October that the airline was considering withdrawing from Oneworld.
IAG appears virtually resigned to this possibility. Chief executive Willie Walsh, speaking during a capital markets event on 2 November, said a Qatar Airways split from Oneworld was "highly likely".
"[Al Baker] doesn't say these things without being genuine behind the comments," says Walsh.
"He's annoyed with the way some members of Oneworld have responded to them as an alliance partner – he doesn't believe it's appropriate."
Al Baker had previously expressed to FlightGlobal an irritation with American Airlines and Qantas.
Qatar Airways holds a share of around 20% in IAG, while the Qatari sovereign wealth fund is a 20% stakeholder in IAG member British Airways' London Heathrow base.
But Walsh says a withdrawal from the alliance "won't, in any way, have an impact on [IAG's] relationship" with Qatar Airways.
"We would be happy to continue working with [Al Baker] on areas of co-operation," he says, whether Qatar is an alliance partner or a shareholder.
British Airways has benefited from wet-leased Qatar Airways aircraft, while its own Boeing 787s have been undergoing engine work.
Walsh adds that Aer Lingus was able to take advantage of an Airbus A330 which Qatar released early, and which was swiftly switched – in the same configuration, without any major modification – to the Irish carrier for the peak season. "We're looking at areas of co-operation like that," says Walsh. FG

 

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Alan Joyce abbastanza esplicito.

Leave if you’re not happy, Qantas CEO tells Qatar Airways in response to Oneworld exit threats

• Airline chief Alan Joyce’s comments come amid deepening dispute over Gulf carrier’s expansion into Australia
• Qantas says destinations lost because of row with Qatar Airways can be replaced thanks to pact with Emirates, Air France and KLM

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Leave if you are not happy, Qantas Airways CEO Alan Joyce said in response to renewed threats by Qatar Airways to quit a global airline pact amid a brewing dispute over the Gulf carrier’s expansion plans.

The head of the Australian airline told the Post earlier this week that “nobody should be in an alliance where they believe it’s not working for them”. Both companies are part of Oneworld, a grouping of some of the world’s top airlines, including Hong Kong’s Cathay Pacific Airways.
Qatar Airways CEO Akbar Al Baker has threatened for years to pull out of the pact. He revived the warning last month, then reiterated his comments on Tuesday, citing a letter allegedly sent by Qantas to its staff attacking the Gulf airline’s push into Australia.
Al Baker, who has defended the expansion as being done at the invitation of the Australian government, said he “doesn’t see any point” staying in the alliance.

In his first public comments since the rift made headlines, Joyce said: “Our view has been very simple, we’re after fair competition.”
He said this was what Qantas wanted from the Australian government’s bilateral discussions with other nations on aviation, adding: “Nobody could say there is anything wrong with that.”

Elaborating on what he meant by “fair competition”, Joyce said the general thinking was that companies were economically independent and not cross-subsidised by a government.
“If aviation was governed by the World Trade Organisation, there would be some dumping cases against people for going in well below cost to force people off routes and markets. We think those rules should apply to aviation markets,” he added.

Oneworld, which has 13 core members, is one of the big three global airline pacts. The others are Star Alliance, whose top members include Singapore Airlines, and Skyteam, which counts Delta Air Lines among its leading carriers.
Customers of member airlines share perks and benefits across the wider grouping, including air miles for flights and access to facilities such as airport lounges.
Among the big draws for travellers on Qatar Airways are its low prices for long-haul destinations, particularly in business class, often as low as US$1,000 for a return ticket between Europe and Australia.

Qantas’ CEO said, however, that the company’s customers would not lose out as a result of the dispute, as its pact with Emirates – Qatar’s arch-rival – along with Air France and KLM would allow it to replace any lost destinations only served by the Doha-based carrier.
“We’ve plenty of other alternative mechanisms, which is the way our network is designed,” Joyce said. “People have a lot of choice on the Qantas-coded network to get to the same European points that they had been using Qatar.”
As for the threat to quit Oneworld, he said: “If they decide to leave, it is because it is no longer working for them. Nobody should be in an alliance where they believe its not working for them. If Qatar feel they do better outside of Oneworld, that is up to them.”

Oneworld said it was keen to see its members resolve their differences quickly.
“Like any family, there are times when our members have differences on specific issues. We hope they can be resolved quickly so that all parties can focus fully on what is important for us all – delivering great service to customers,” a spokesman said.
Willie Walsh, CEO of British Airways’ parent International Airlines Group (IAG), told London’s financial community two weeks ago it was “highly likely” Qatar Airways would leave, in the first independent comments that validated the exit warnings.
Al Baker’s comments were a “genuine threat”, but such a move would not impact BA’s business relations with Qatar Airways, Walsh said, as the two companies had discussed the implications of an exit on each other’s business.

Qatar owns a 20 per cent stake in IAG and has a 10 per cent stake in Cathay Pacific and LatAm, the pan-Latin American carrier. Its stakes in foreign carriers were evidence Qatar “doesn’t need to be in an alliance”, Al Baker told the audience at an International Air Transport Association conference in Spain on Tuesday.

“I don’t see any point in us continuing to stay a part of Oneworld when other partners see us as a threat,” the CEO said at the event, according to a Bloomberg report.
The Post reached out to Qatar Airways for comment but did not receive a reply.

https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong...oure-not-happy-qantas-ceo-tells-qatar-airways

 

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Oneworld touts sum benefits on possible Qatar departure

Oneworld chief executive Rob Gurney touts the sum benefit of the alliance over individual member airline spats when faced with questions over the possible departure of Qatar Airways.
"The reality of global alliances is there's not always going to be 100% alignment of strategic interests among the member partners," he said at the announcement of Royal Air Maroc's membership in New York on 5 December. "However, no single airline can offer the customer a completely holistic proposition in terms of network."
Interline partnerships among Oneworld members generate roughly $5 billion in incremental revenue annually, says Gurney putting a number to those network benefits.
Akbar Al Baker, chief executive of Qatar Airways, first threatened to pull the airline from Oneworld in October, calling various other member airlines' competitive moves against the Doha-based carrier "shenanigans".
“The whole idea behind an alliance is to work together to support each other like a family," he said at the time. "But I don’t think that is any more the spirit of the alliance."
American Airlines was outspoken against alleged state-subsidies Qatar received that allowed it to essentially dump capacity in the US market, while Al Baker claims Qantas Airways has used its own partnership with Emirates to block Qatar from expanding to Australia.
Qatar is the only Gulf carrier in one of the major alliances, with Emirates Airline and Etihad Airways unaligned.
Gurney espouses a different view of Oneworld, where the overall benefits outweigh competition on the individual airline level.
"Most of us compete with each other in the marketplace," he says.
Competition and spats among alliance partners are not isolated to Oneworld or Qatar. Delta Air Lines challenged US Export-Import Bank (Ex-Im) loan guarantees to Korean Air, a fellow SkyTeam Alliance partner, in US courts in 2013. Since then, however, the SkyTeam carriers have forged closer tiesand entered an immunised joint venture in May.
On a less divisive level, alliance partners that operate outside of an immunised pact compete on routes where they overlap. For example, Star Alliance members Air China and United Airlines compete on routes between Beijing and Newark, San Francisco and Washington Dulles.
Gurney, for his part, is sanguine about the possible exit of Qatar from Oneworld.
"Ultimately each member airline needs to make their own commercial business decisions based on their own needs and priorities, and we respect that," he says." FG