Roo jumps over ruling; boozy times ahead

Qantas is likely to be celebrating today, and will probably do so with a good tipple after appointing Rockpool to revamp its booze list.

Qantas has welcomed an interim decision by the competition watchdog for the carrier to expand its partnership with American Airlines on services between Australia and the US.

The alliance received the interim tick of approval from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) on Thursday, but is still subject to final approval from the regulator.

The ACCC said the expansion was likely to lead to extra capacity and competition on the Sydney-Los Angeles route and flights between Sydney and San Francisco.

Qantas International chief executive Gareth Evans said the deal was good for passengers, who would now be able to fly direct to San Francisco.

“Our corporate customers in particular have told us they look forward to saving about four hours each way by not having to connect through Los Angeles,” Evans said.

“They are thrilled we are returning to San Francisco, which is the most popular onward destination for Qantas customers travelling to the US.”

He said direct flights to San Francisco would start on December 18 with its Boeing 747-400.

Qantas and American Airlines formed a five-year alliance in 2011, and have recently sought to expand the arrangement. This week, Air New Zealand submitted its objection to the ACCC for allowing the services to take off during the peak travel season in December, arguing the airlines’ prior alliance, which does not expire until June 2016, should be remain intact for the period.

Last month, Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce said the new Pacific routes operating from December were part of a plan by the airlines to grow the Pacific market by around 9%.

The new direct flight between Sydney and San Francisco on a Qantas Boeing 747 will take around 14 hours and Qantas and American Airlines said they are now working to finalise the schedule of new services with fares available in coming weeks. Services will initially operate on peak days and ramp up to six per week in January from 27 January 2016. Sydney-San Francisco services will not operate on 23^rd, 24^th, 25^th and 31^st December 2015.

The ACCC says it will now prepare a draft determination on the expanded co-operation agreement.

The announcement is the second for Qantas this morning, following an earlier notice that it has appointed Neil Perry’s award-winning restaurant group Rockpool to provide Qantas with a team of experts to revamp to airline’s wine list.

Evans said 16 sommeliers and mixologists from the famous chef’s restaurants will hand-pick wine, champagne, spirits and cocktails on offer for domestic and international passengers.

The airline is the third largest buyer of wine in Australia and the initiative will see Qantas staff trained to recommend the perfect drop to customers, Evans said.

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Latest comments

AUSSIEtraveller says:
July 9, 2015 at 12:09 pm
So does this mean new aa flights & qf syd/sfo flights can now be sold or not ?
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- Daisy says:
  July 9, 2015 at 12:14 pm
  According to QF, they are finalising the fares and schedules, which will be out in a couple of weeks.
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