It is fair to say the tiny gulf nation of Qatar has probably registered more mentions on Australian Hansard in the past week than any other time in history.
At the centre of this saga is Qatar Airways and the Albanese government’s decision to refuse the airline’s application to increase its operations to Australia.
The request for extra air rights has become mired in controversy, and comes at a time when international airfares remain stubbornly high as demand outstrips supply.
Here is a run down of how it had been bubbling along for months before questions about Qantas’ influence in the decision saw the matter explode in recent weeks.
What is this all about?
In a nutshell, Qatar Airways wanted to run more flights between Australia’s four major airports (Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth), its base in Doha, Europe and other destinations.
The Australian government formally rejected this request in July.
What exactly did Qatar Airways apply for?
Qatar Airways applied to run an additional 28 weekly services to the four major airports.
How many flights does Qatar Airways run to Australia?
Qatar Airways flies 42 return services to Australia weekly, so its request represented an almost doubling of its current operations.
Of these 42 flights, 35 fly non-stop between Doha into the four major airports each week.
This includes 28 return flights weekly between Doha and Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth. These flights are the limit of its permissions into the four major airports.
Of the 42 flights, seven are additional weekly services into Melbourne – meaning it serves the city twice daily – and it is allowed to do this because it then flies the plane onto Adelaide. It can’t sell tickets to this flight due to Australia’s aviation laws, but by flying this leg, the service registers as serving a non-major airport, exploiting a loophole for extra flights.
It also operates a separate daily non-stop flight to Adelaide – not considered a major airport – which flies onto Auckland.
Why does it need permission to add more flights?
Qatar has already exhausted all of its capacity to major airports, but has unlimited capacity for non-stop flights to all other airports in Australia.
Australia’s bilateral air agreement with Qatar limits the country to 28 weekly services into major airports. Additionally, the Qatari carrier can operate a further seven additional services a week to a major airport if it flies onto a smaller airport – which it uses for its Doha-Melbourne-Adelaide flight.
Qatar could still add more flights to Australia but they would have to go non-stop to non-major airports – cities like Cairns, Darwin and Canberra – but these may not be as profitable for the airline.
It could also fly slightly larger planes on its existing flights to carry more passengers – the bilateral agreement limits the number of services, not seats.
What are bilateral air services agreements?
Countries negotiate aviation rights in the same way they conduct many other trade deals.
Bilateral air agreements between countries will stipulate either a number of flights, or number of seats, that airlines from a particular country can fly to the other.
Australia’s bilateral air agreements also differentiate between capacity into the four major airports – Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth – and all other airports.
Most agreements have stricter limits for the major airports, but fewer restrictions for other airports. This is partly done to incentivise foreign airlines to run services to smaller cities to boost regional tourism.
Do airlines from other countries also have capacity issues?
Qatar and Fiji are the only countries where carriers are operating at the absolute limits of their permissions into major airports. The government’s aviation green paper released on Thursday noted bilateral air rights should be granted “ahead of demand” in most cases, to ensure there are no impediments to economic and connectivity benefits.
However, some countries have struck “open skies” agreements with Australia, which means there are no limits on how many flights carriers from each country can operate to the other.
Carriers from the United States, United Kingdom, China and India, for example, have unlimited capacity. So United Airlines, British Airways, Air India or China Southern wouldn’t have these same problems if they wanted to increase services.
Restrictions still apply on foreign airlines operating domestic services within a foreign country – which is why Qatar Airways cannot sell tickets to domestic passengers on its Melbourne-Adelaide flights.
Who supports Qatar having more flights?
A broad chorus of aviation and travel industry groups have backed the expanded capacity, with many desperate to increase international flight capacity and add more seat supply into the market to bring down airfares.
State premiers supported the flights as a boost to tourism and economic activity – some of the more generous estimates of this economic benefit put the value as high as $1bn from the extra flights.
Virgin Australia – a partner airline of Qatar Airways – supported the extra flights.
Former and current chiefs of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission have also agreed the extra flights would put downward pressure on international airfares.
Who is opposed to Qatar’s extra flights?
Qantas lobbied the government against allowing Qatar Airways, who it sees as a competitor, to expand. Its former chief executive, Alan Joyce, has claimed that allowing Qatar the extra capacity would “distort” the local aviation market.
The Australian government also remains opposed to Qatar Airways expanding services. It has given eight reasons for refusing the request: decarbonising the sector; the national interest; protecting local aviation jobs; the local aviation industry’s post-Covid recovery; Qantas’ investment in new aircraft; Qantas’ long-term sustainability; the fact the Qatari government owns the airline; and a 2020 incident at Doha airport.
The government maintains that if the airline wants to increase flights to Australia, it can do so immediately, just to non-major airports.
What is the Doha airport incident?
Five Australian women at the centre of a legal fight with Qatar Airways and a few Qatari companies are also opposed to the extra flights.
These women were subjected to involuntary, invasive bodily examinations after they were escorted off planes at Doha airport at gunpoint in 2020 when authorities grounded all flights to search for the mother of a newborn baby they found abandoned in a bathroom at the airport.
Qatar Airways, the Qatar Civil Aviation Authority, and a subsidiary that runs Doha airport, are all fighting against paying compensation to the women. As a result, the women have said the airline is “not fit” to be awarded extra flights to Australia.
