Qatar Airways (QR, Doha Hamad International) is in the hunt for acquisitions CEO Akbar Al Baker has said. In an interview with Bloomberg Business, al Baker said his airline is “actively discussing opportunities with other passenger carriers" having passed up chances to invest in Air Seychelles (HM, Mahé), Jat Airways (Belgrade Nikola Tesla), and Olympic Air (OA, Athens).
“We would rather keep it to ourself for the time being, of where we want to invest. When we see that there are strong synergies between the two carriers we are open to investment,” he said. “We want to make sure that we don’t create a burden on us,” he added. “We want airlines that we acquire to be complementary to us, we don’t want to get involved in fixing other people’s problems.”
Alitalia (AZA, Rome Fiumicino), which is now in talks with Etihad Airways (EY, Abu Dhabi International), had also indicated its availability several times over the past five years, the CEO noted.
Al Baker again reiterated that the Qatari carrier had never had any designs on any Indian carriers such as SpiceJet (SG, Delhi International). In the wake of Etihad's 24% acquisition of Jet Airways (JAI, Mumbai International) last year, the Indian press had reported on several occasions that the Qataris were on the cusp of signing an agreement only for nothing to materialize.
Given its perceived status as one of the world's leading airlines, governments around the world - Africa in particular - have sent delegations to Doha in the hopes of securing a Qatari commitment to their national airlines, Zambia and Nigeria among them.
