Air New Zealand (ANZ) and Qantas are to open talks on ways of working together, despite New Zealand regulators blocking them from forging an equity-based alliance.
ANZ managing director and chief executive Ralph Norris says talks would cover possible areas where they may be able to co-operate without breaching competition laws. "There are a lot of areas - training, engineering, inventory sharing, things of that nature - that it would make good sense for us to pursue," he adds.
The alliance would have seen Qantas take a 22.5% stake in ANZ and the two carriers co-operate on many services. New Zealand regulatory authorities blocked the move on grounds that it would be anticompetitive and an appeal to the country's High Court was rejected.
Meanwhile, Norris says ANZ expects no change in its relationship with Singapore Airlines (SIA) following the Singaporean national carrier's sale of its minority stake. "It certainly does not affect the positive working relationship we have with Singapore Airlines," he says. This includes codesharing and other co-operative ties.
"Certainly if you look at the Singapore holding, it was a non-strategic holding - they didn't have board representation - so it didn't make a lot of sense to hold on to a 6.3% holding. For us it increased the liquidity."
SIA sold its stake through a placement to institutional investors for NZ$61.7 million ($41.5 million).
NICHOLAS IONIDES / SINGAPORE
Source: Flight International