Qantas has ruled out replacing its domestic flights into Adelaide with Jetstar services

QANTAS has ruled out replacing its domestic flights into Adelaide with Jetstar services.

Qantas denies there are plans to replace its domestic services out of Adelaide with Jetst

QANTAS has ruled out replacing its domestic flights into Adelaide with Jetstar services.

South Australian Labor Senator Alex Gallacher had voiced fears that the airline could transfer all Adelaide services to its low-cost offshoot.

Qantas will next month replace its regular flights between the mainland and Tasmania with B717 services operated by regional subsidiary QantasLink.

Senator Gallacher, a former airline worker and president of the Transport Workers' Union, was concerned the airline could also move to give responsibility for all its Adelaide flights to Jetstar.

"Therefore you take all the Qantas workers out of Adelaide," Senator Gallacher said during a committee inquiry hearing.

A Qantas spokeswoman said the company had no intention of transferring Adelaide services to Jetstar. "There is no plan to do that," she said.

The closure of Qantas catering services in Adelaide has already cost 180 jobs and more will go as the flying kangaroo finds $2 billion worth of savings across its domestic and international services.

Aviation industry expert Tony Webber, of the University of Sydney, said it was highly unlikely that Qantas would transfer any of its Adelaide routes completely to Jetstar.

Mr Webber, a former Qantas chief economist, said South Australian-bound business traffic was too strong to consider offering only low-cost services.

"There's no way it's going to happen," he said.

"If there was a belief that there was traffic on the Adelaide route that could be stimulated with price or traffic and that the business traffic purchase was weak and they didn’t have the strong stranglehold, then maybe it would happen.

"But that’s just not the case."

Mr Webber said the only possible exception was the Adelaide-to-Brisbane route, which had a high proportion of holiday-makers seeking cheap tickets.

Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce told a senate inquiry last week that the airline was determined to protect its domestic position and would not risk "waving a white flag".

"If Qantas loses its strong domestic premium position and Jetstar loses its strong leisure low-cost position, then this group will lose the core of its strategy, its profitability and its history," Mr Joyce said.

"And we are going to protect that. How we are protecting that is first of all in Qantas continuing to invest in product and service."

The Federal Government wants to help Qantas to overcome its financial woes by easing foreign ownership restrictions that have prevented the airline from raising capital.

But Labor is reluctant to allow Qantas to fall into majority foreign ownership and has signalled it won't be rushed into a decision on supporting changes to the Qantas Sale Act.

Labor's caucus did not discuss the issue when it met on Tuesday.

At the government's joint parties meeting, Labor was accused by Coalition senators of "revisiting the White Australia policy" in its approach to Qantas.