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 some members of Oneworld have responded to them as an alliance partner which he doesn't believe to be appropriate."
Walsh added that al Baker had already sounded out the European airline consortium over its willingness to continue cooperation regardless of Qatar Airways' possible exit from Oneworld.
"It won't in any way have an impact on our relationship [i.e. Qatar Airways' investment and commercial ties with IAG], he's assured me of that," Walsh added. "In fact, he's discussed this with me to make sure we would be happy to continue working with him on areas of cooperation whether or not he is a shareholder [of IAG] or a member of the alliance."
