Company Watch - Qantas Airways.

Jan 22, 2007

Qantas will increase its thrice-weekly Sydney-San Francisco service to five-times-weekly from March 26 by shifting flights from Los Angeles. It will add 18 "supplementary flights" to LAX between June 19 and July 28, after which it will fly 35-times-weekly to LAX and five-times-weekly to SFO. Jan 15, 2007

Airline Partners Australia's A$11.1 billion ($8.64 million) equity buyout of Qantas continued to face criticism yesterday as rebel Sen. Barnaby Joyce, a National Party of Australia member from Queensland, added his influential voice to the call for greater competition on the Australia-US route. Joyce said in a statement that the APA consortium is of "indeterminate nationality" and therefore deserves no special treatment from the federal government "and should be exposed to competition on the US-Australian route just like any other airline." Farther south, opposition Labor Party politicians in Tasmania called for services to the mainly holiday island to be "protected." Currently, the Australia Consumer and Competition Commission and the Foreign Investment Review Board are examining the deal on a range of complex issues, including the cross-ownership of Sydney Airport by APA leader Macquarie Bank. FIRB may not approve the deal if they are deemed associates. Reports from both bodies are expected in late February. Deputy leader of the governing Liberal Party and Treasurer Peter Costello then will consider the case on national interest grounds, but that review may take some time. In 2001 Costello took six months to reject the bid by Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell for Australia's Woodside Petroleum. Jan 11, 2007 01/22/2007

Editor: Aram Gesar, eMail: [e-mail] For Air Transport & Travel Business Experts contact eMail: [e-mail]

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Jan 8, 2007