Major players lock horns in air-fare war

18 April 2009

The downtrend in the aviation industry does not seem to have dampened growth plans of at least one play - Emirates, which unveiled plans to increase both flights and capacity from Dubai to Sydney this week.

Emirates' Richard Vaughan, newly appointed global commercial operations division senior vice-president announced its three-times a week superjumbo A380 service from Dubai, Sydney and Auckland would fly daily from 1 May. He added that Emirates had no intention of cutting workforce like Qantas.

Vaughan said Emirates had been in the country since 1996 operating 63 flights a week to Australia. He added that the company has made a huge commitment to Australia and spent much time, effort and money promoting flights to Australia.

He said that the company would not be deterred by a few hiccups in the industry adding that their forward bookings were healthy and the airline presently an average load of 80 per cent capacity.

Meanwhile the airfare war hotted up this week with 80-per cent discounts on selected international flights announced by Malaysia Airlines. Eight major airlines have clashed in the fare war which triggered Qantas' move on Tuesday to lay off staff and to ground staff.

Qantas sought to scotch speculation of low-cost subsidiary Jetstar taking over a big chunk of its operations in WA in a bid to cut costs.