Here’s some great news for air travelers, Qatar Airways, and Virgin Australia. I’m pleasantly surprised by how quickly this has been approved, at least on an interim basis.

Qatar Airways’ creative request to boost Australia flights

A couple of months ago, it was announced that Qatar Airways intends to buy a 25% stake in Virgin Australia. While there are presumably many reasons that Qatar Airways was interested in this investment, the airline seemed to have one primary motivation — getting access to more of the Australian market.

The Australian government takes a rather protectionist approach with airlines based in the country. This has meant that Qatar Airways has been greatly limited in terms of the number of flights it can operate to Australia.

The bilateral agreement between Australia and Qatar only allows airlines from Qatar (in other words, Qatar Airways) to operate 28 weekly flights to Australia’s four main airports. In theory airlines from Australia could also operate 28 weekly flights to Qatar, but no Australian carrier has been interested in flying to the country… until now.

This is where Qatar Airways and Virgin Australia devised a brilliant plan:

• Virgin Australia will resume long haul flights, flying from various Australian airports to Doha, taking up those 28 bilateral slots on the Australian side
• However, Virgin Australia doesn’t have long haul aircraft, so the plan is that Qatar Airways will wet lease these planes to Virgin Australia
• In other words, this is a strategy to allow Qatar Airways to double its flights to Australia; these Virgin Australia flights will have a Virgin Australia flight number, but will operate with Qatar Airways aircraft, crews, etc.

Regulators have approved this arrangement, sort of

I was curious if regulators would approve this arrangement, given the extent to which they’ve historically protected Australian carriers, and particularly Qantas. Furthermore, there’s no denying that Qatar Airways is sort of exploiting a loophole here, in order to exceed the artificially low limit on flights between the countries.

The Australian Competition & Consumer Commission has just granted interim authorization for this plan:

• As of June 2025, Virgin Australia will start flying daily from Brisbane (BNE), Melbourne (MEL), and Sydney (SYD), to Doha (DOH)
• As of November 2025, Virgin Australia will start flying daily from Perth (PER) to Doha (DOH)

Let me once again emphasize that when we talk about Virgin Australia “flying” these routes, the only thing Virgin Australia will have to do with this is the marketing of the flight. Everything else will be typical of Qatar Airways.

So as you can see, a year from now Qatar Airways will basically have twice as many flights to Australia as it does now, with half of them being marketed by Virgin Australia.

Here’s how ACCC Deputy Chair Keogh describes this development:

”We consider that granting interim authorisation now will allow Qatar Airways and Virgin Australia the lead time to undertake the necessary planning discussions, marketing, selling and system alignment in preparation for Virgin Australia to commence flying the new services by June 2025.”

It’s worth noting that it’s still possible that final regulatory approval won’t be granted, in which case customers who have booked on these services would be protected:

“Affected customers will be given the option of a refund or re-accommodation on a suitable alternative flight at no additional charge and would not be out of pocket for any reasonably foreseeable costs if these proposed new services ultimately don’t get approved.”

“Having this court-enforceable undertaking that protects customers was important to our decision to allow Virgin Australia and Qatar Airways to start selling tickets now.”

Bottom line

The Australian government has tentatively given permission for Qatar Airways to greatly expand its service between Doha and Australia, by allowing Virgin Australia to market these long haul flights.

Currently Qatar Airways is limited to 28 weekly flights between Doha and Australia’s four main airports. Soon Qatar Airways will be able to also use the 28 weekly flights that Australian carriers can operate between the two countries, by having Virgin Australia market flights.

I’m happy to see this being tentatively approved, as it’s great for consumers. This will lead to increased competition, especially given how dominant Emirates and Qantas are with their current partnership.

What do you make of Qatar Airways doubling flights to Australia?