Qatar Airways Cargo inaugurates Doha's new Hamad International Airport

Qantas (QF, Sydney Kingsford Smith) is not going to fight to keep Qatar Airways (QR, Doha Hamad Int'l) in Oneworld, CEO Alan Joyce told the South China Morning Post.

"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," Joyce said.

The boss of the Australian flag carrier was responding to repeated threats from Akbar Al Baker, his counterpart at Qatar Airways, that the Gulf carrier could leave the alliance. While the dispute has generally concerned the campaign of American Airlines (AA, Dallas/Fort Worth), another Oneworld member, against the alleged state subsidies to Qatar, earlier this week Al Baker explicitly named Qantas as an example of an obstructionist airline.

The Qatari executive cited an internal memo at Qantas criticising Qatar's expansion into Australia as an example of the two Oneworld members being at odds.

Joyce said...

IAG International Airlines Group has reportedly been talking with the Spanish authorities for a few weeks already to ensure that the holding retains its EU-based status after the United Kingdom leaves the bloc in March 2019, El Pais has reported.

Under EU rules, in order to access the bloc's Open Skies airspace, an airline needs to be owned and controlled by EU entities or citizens, effectively meaning that the majority of shares must be held by such entities or citizens.

IAG, the parent of British Airways, Iberia, Aer Lingus, Vueling Airlines, and LEVEL, is registered in Spain and is now trying to ensure that it will also fulfil the control and ownership clause after Brexit. The holding has global shareholders, including Qatar Airways, which owns a 20.1% stake. Following UK's departure from the Union, British investors will no longer count as EU entities.

In the absence of a withdrawal agreement, it remains unclear what rules will govern the UK-EU air traffic after March 29, 2019. It is also unclear whether...

Qatar Airways (QR, Doha Hamad Int'l) is considering establishing a closer cooperation with IAG International Airlines Group, LATAM Airlines Group, and Cathay Pacific, in which it holds equity stakes, as an alternative to a continued membership in Oneworld, Qatar Airways Group CEO Akbar Al Baker said during the IATA Wings of Change conference in Madrid.

"There is no point in us staying in Oneworld if there are airlines seeing us as a threat rather than a partner. We own substantial shares in three major Oneworld members and we could work with them instead of staying in the alliance," Al Baker said.

He added that he had presented the conditions for Qatar's further membership in the alliance to its executives and was now waiting for their response. Short of disclosing a specific deadline for the decision, Al Baker said that he was "very impatient" and there was "not too much time" for Oneworld to change its ways.

"I would like to stay in Oneworld but only if it is in the...

IAG International Airlines Group chief executive Willie Walsh says he believes Qatar Airways will indeed leave the Oneworld alliance given its frustrations with fellow members American Airlines and Qantas.

Late last month, the Qatari carrier's CEO Akbar Al Baker told FlightGlobal that the US carrier had gone against the alliance's intrinsic spirit of cooperation by "targetting" and "slandering" his airline and by giving "misinformation" to the US government. He also claimed that American Airlines had targetted Qatar Airways' Air Italy unit by alleging to Washington that Qatar Airways intended to use Milan Malpensa as a 5th Freedom hub thus violating the terms of its pledge to the United States made earlier this year. Qantas, he said, had blocked Qatar Airways from gaining additional traffic rights for Australia.

"I think it's highly likely that Qatar [Airways] will leave Oneworld," Walsh said during an IAG Investors Day presentation last week. "I've had regular contact with Akbar about this issue; he doesn't say these things without being genuine. He is annoyed with the way...