Qatar Airways’ plan for first class, and Australia

Sky News contributor James Bolt says the Qatar Airways debacle for Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is a “damaging look” if he is telling the truth. “Let’s take Albanese at his word that he was never actually lobbied by anyone from Qantas,” Mr Bolt told Sky News host James Macpherson. “Or by Alan Joyce, despite all these meetings he had with them. “Let’s say that’s true. “How influential is Qantas that they can meet with him this many times, never even bring up the Qatar Airways decision, and just sit there patiently knowing he is going to do exactly what they want anyway.”

Badr Mohammed Al Meer who took over from long-serving CEO Akbar Al Baker last November, was speaking to American television network CNBC in his first major interview since stepping up.

Mr Al Meer also said Qatar had made a request for proposals (RFP) to Boeing and Airbus, for a “big order” of new aircraft, and would delay the retirement of its A380 fleet by at least a few years.

Asked where Qatar would put the additional capacity, Mr Al Meer said they were targeting certain markets.

“Currently today, the markets that we want to grow in are China, India, Australia, Japan, Korea, and few other markets,” he said.

“But even if we get the growth that we require from those countries in a few months, we will start looking for growth in other markets.”

The planned growth in Australia was likely to fuel speculation Qatar Airways may be interested in buying Virgin Australia from US private equity owners Bain Capital.

Respected aviation commentator Peter Harbison raised that possibility at last week’s Destination Australia conference, telling tourism and travel industry leaders it was likely Bain would seek to capitalise on its investment in Virgin Australia through a trade sale.

“Not many companies want to buy into an airline, let alone an airline that’s in Virgin’s position at the moment, so the only companies really who are interested are other airlines, and particularly foreign airlines,” Mr Harbison said.

“Under Australia’s aviation policy, 100 per cent of any domestic airline can be owned by foreign interests, but any purchaser is subject to the Foreign Investment Review Board.”

He said a potential sale to Qatar Airways would mean revisiting the issue of whether that was in the national interest.

“Qantas is going to be strongly advising the government that Qatar Airways buying into the Australian market is not in the national interest, and that’s where the real crunch is going to come because Virgin has to be a solid competitor,” said Mr Harbison.

“If it’s not, we’re going to end up with a monopoly in that industry.”

Last year the Albanese government knocked back Qatar Airways’ application for 28 more flights a week into Australia because it was “not in the national interest”.

The decision created widespread outrage among travellers, airports and state governments and triggered a Senate inquiry which recommended the ruling be overturned.

Mr Al Meer was not asked about the issue directly, but said it was his goal to ensure Qatar Airways was a leader in the aviation industry, and known for its innovation.

He said their first class product was 70 to 80 per cent ready, and would be announced very soon.

“I feel nobody can develop first class cabin better than us, for a very simple reason,” Mr Al Meer said.

“What we did with the Qsuite by raising the benchmark for a very long time, we will do the same with a first class cabin. And people will not have to pay an arm and a leg to fly on those first class.”

With regards to his own leadership style, Mr Al Meer indicated he was taking a different approach to the hard line of his predecessor Mr Al Baker, particularly in relation to crew.

A night curfew for crew had been scrapped and Qatar had also revised its social media policy for staff, he said.

“Today it’s different, we are living in a different world,” he said.

“So this is what we want to make the life of our staff easier to make them appreciate the new era that we are living in.”