Qantas Shifts Its Hub to Dubai under New Alliance with Emirates

Qantas has declared to shift its hub from Singapore’s Changi airport to Dubai’s International Airport following its 10-year alliance with Emirates. Qantas has been operating flights to Perth, Adelaide, Sydney and Brisbane among Australian destinations from Singapore.

Singapore faces increasing competition from Dubai for functioning as the link for international carriers between Europe, Oceania and Asia. On the other side of the curtain, Emirates is witnessed to establish improved links to Australia through its new alliance with Qantas. This alliance will prove functional in competition to its regional rival airlines, Qatar Airways and Etihad Airways. Qatar Airways has recently started operating Perth flights while Etihad Airways has doubled its investments in Virgin Australia.

Qantas is apparently inconsistent efforts for reducing operating costs in light of the net annual loss it posted last month. The motives behind this aspect are predictably inclined to gaining fuel economy for the flag carriers flights to Asia.Currently, Qantas operates an Airbus A380 superjumbo each from Melbourne and Sydney’s daily flights to London on the renowned “Kangaroo Route” via a 2-hour stopover at Singapore. These flights would substitute their stopovers of Singapore with Dubai before April 2013.

With Qantas withdrawing its London-bound route via Singapore, Singapore Airlines and British Airways are expected to benefit from lesser competition. Singapore Airlines has already become prepared to take hold of additional traffic, allocating a Boeing 777-300ER by the end of this month along with the three previous Airbus A380 super-jumbos for flights to London.

An important reputation factor builds behind the prestige for an international airport serving to be a strong station of a major intercontinental carrier. Dubai airport is gaining its focus in this regard, with its passenger traffic considered enormous in numbers increasing year by year.

The city is aspired to revamp its potential in trade, tourism and travel while relying on the airline industry. The airport will expand to accommodate a capacity of 90 million passengers by 2018, with total bills equaling $7.8 billion.