Qatar Airways’ surprise admission on Virgin tie-up

Outspoken Qatar Airways CEO Akbar Al Baker has revealed that Virgin Australia was not his first choice of airline to partner down under.

The CEO Insights panel at IATA’s world air transport summit in Doha with (L-R) Adrian Neuhauser of Avianca Airlines, Virgin Australia CEO Jayne Hrdlicka and Qatar Airways CEO Akbar Al Baker. Picture: IATA

Famously outspoken Qatar Airways chief executive Akbar Al Baker has revealed that Virgin Australia was not his first choice when it came to finding an airline partner down under.

Sitting alongside Virgin CEO Jayne Hrdlicka on a panel at the International Air Transport Association summit in Doha, Mr Al Baker was asked what it was about Virgin that he liked the look of when he decided to partner with them.

“Quite frankly I don’t know if Alan (Joyce) is here but we tried to do work with (Qantas) for a very long time and we realised that it’s not going to happen because they have partnered with somebody (Emirates),” said Mr Al Baker.

“They have recently extended their partnership for another five years which if we were going to wait for them we would’ve had to wait seven years and no business individual will wait for that long.”

He went on to say that the opportunity to partner with Virgin Australia was “never expected”.

“Jayne is new there, I’m sure she’s very experienced in aviation. Anyway she was ex-Jetstar and we found this a fantastic opportunity,” said the Qatar Airways chief.

“We will be able to really show what getting together with somebody that never expected to get together can achieve the results.”

In response, Ms Hrdlicka was much more gracious saying that Virgin had been seeking partners who were able to give consumers a “phenomenal travel experience” as the airline rebuilt.

“We had to start from a standpoint of who are we serving. We're serving our guests and for us that’s Qatar into Europe, United into the US and Singapore Airlines into Asia and Europe,” said Ms Hrdlicka.

“Qatar was one of the few airlines along with United that kept Australia connected to the world (in the pandemic). We were isolated, we are a long way from anybody for those of you who don’t know and it’s very daunting when your borders shut and your national carrier’s not serving your network.”

The panel also tackled the issue of airport chaos which airline chiefs have blamed delayed and cancelled flights and passengers’ bags not being loaded.

Mr Al Baker said those issues had not been factored into the recovery plans of airlines.

“Nobody expected this chaos would happen at airports, because nobody expected there would be a pandemic, nobody expected millions of people would be made redundant and millions of people would be allowed to work from home,” he said.

“Passengers need people to serve them and this is where the problem is at the airports.”

Mr Al Baker stressed that there were no such issues at Hamad International Airport in Doha but said others like Heathrow in London and Schiphol in Amsterdam were not so fortunate.

“It’s also because during the pandemic their equipment was not properly looked after and serviced,” he said.

“We get delays of 1.5 to two hours (at these airports) and 50 per cent of the time the baggage system is broken down.”

Ms Hrdlicka chimed in that “nobody had the perfect foresight” for a path through the pandemic, but she suggested airport maintenance should have been obvious.

“It’s very frustrating for all of us not to have airports back and functioning as well as they should because that seems like the easiest job,” she said.