Qantasia to partner with MH and AK?

[elbarto]

[url]http://www.smh.com.au/business/qantas-boss-bets-the-house-on-asian-expansion-20120113-1pzdg.html[/URL]


Looks as if Qantas has been talking with MH and AK about setting up their asian airline in KUL.

 

[yohy?!]

Don't really see how an ultra premium venture based in KUL would be tapping the wealth in Asia. The analysts in the article don't see this as a winning move and the whole plan is an unclear as ever.

Think it's more likely they would establish crew and maintenance ops in KUL then run services back to Oz and Europe as JQ does from SIN and BKK using local crews.

I imagine the upcoming results are going to make things progress, if they are poor it will accelerate expected redundancies and make the move into Asia more urgent.

 

[777]

Does nothing to convince me that current management has any clue how to do any of this successfully.

 

[richie9x]

I think a Qantasia setup in KL could work. Firstly as a feeder from Asia into long haul QF and MAS flights. Then even replacing current QF flights to/from Singapore.

There is a large amount of wealth in Malaysia. It has a larger GDP than either Singapore or Hong Kong, thanks largely through oil and gas. Which will no doubt grow in future years due to rising energy prices. You also get a fair amount of big spending Arabs investing in Malaysia and coming there for their summer holidays, which you don't get in the other countries.

Also I believe there is a lot of misinformation and speculation about this Qantasia setup. Some coming from media interviewing their computer keyboards. But I think some may even be leaked from Qantas or perhaps encouraged by Qantas so as to keep the competitors and the unions guessing, and to play off potential partners and suppliers against each other. Like the whole "premium airline" thing, I would not be surprised if in the end Qantasia offers similar level of service to current Qantas services.