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Virgin Australia alliance partner Etihad continues to go about building its Australia-Europe links the opposite way to Emirates with its partnership with Qantas.
Where Emirates flies in its own right into the major and often secondary and even tertiary cities in EU states from its Dubai super hub, Etihad is building code shares with European carriers in the opposite direction, into its neighboring ’boutique’ hub in Abu Dhai, from where it can fly Dutch, German and Italian airline customers onwards to Australia on its services.
It is like watching David (Etihad) and Goliath (Emirates) circling each other in the school yard sand pit, although it would be unwise to place bets on a win, loss or draw.
Today Etihad announced a further development in its strategic partnership with KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, which among many other things, means the Netherlands carrier is able to put its booking code on Etihad flights which serve Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne.
James Hogan, Etihad Airways’ President and Chief Executive Officer, said: “The launch of Etihad Airways flights to Amsterdam demonstrates the deepening of our relationship with KLM as we anticipate great demand for the KLM codeshare flights beyond Schiphol Airport.
“The partnership with KLM follows Etihad Airways strategy of working closely with partners around the world and using their existing networks to feed secondary cities, as well as other areas of benefit to customers like reciprocal lounge access and frequent flyer ‘earn and burn’.”
The 12 additional destinations that Etihad Airways customers can now access through codeshare operations with KLM are Stockholm, Aberdeen, Barcelona, Bergen, Birmingham, Copenhagen, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Gothenburg, Helsinki, Leeds/Bradford and Madrid.
These cities join the first phase of cities served by KLM, which carry the EY code, Billund, Cardiff, Newcastle, Oslo, and Stavanger.
KLM now has its KL code on six Etihad Airways’ flights to Abu Dhabi, Brisbane, Khartoum, Male, Muscat and Seychelles.
These join the initial group of cities served by Etihad Airways – Colombo, Islamabad, Lahore, Melbourne, and Sydney – which also carry the KL code.
KLM quit the kangaroo routes to Europe in the 90s.
Etihad is devising these often immensely complex traffic agreements to get around the protective anti-Middle East carrier hysteria which is popular in the EU and UK , although it would never say so in such direct terms, as well as overcoming the advantages its longer established UAE competitor Emirates has enjoyed in taking up much of the air treaty capacity that was available between the United Arab Emirates and countries in Europe before the Abu Dhabi based carrier sought to emulate its larger rival.
Emirates in contrast has not as yet seen any need to seek a partnership with Lufthansa the way Etihad has with Air Berlin. And given some of the things Lufthansa has said about Emirates in the past, such a relationship might be as implausible as Qantas doing a deal with Emirates right up until May last year, when suddenly the once impossible became a reality.
For the Australian consumer, the message is that the major Middle East carriers, which also includes Qatar Airways, are constantly lining up new links via their respective national hubs to serve Europe.
For the stakeholders in Australia’s inbound tourism market, the news also means that the keys to getting more out of Europe including Russia, Turkey and the northern half of Africa are very firmly held by these ambitious and well funded airlines.
Cathay Pacific and Singapore Airlines may not see it this way, but if they want to stay relevant in the Australia-Europe game, they either need to do much more in response to the fast growing competition, or decide that Asia and China in particular is where they should put their focus.