Qantas CEO offers bitter swipe at Etihad over Virgin investment

He told a Sydney aviation conference that his toubled Australian national carrier airline had spurned the advances of Abu Dhabi-based Etihad in favour of a partnership with Dubai airline Emirates.

In his speech he described it as "like being offered the bike before the BMW".

The Emirates deal has seen the two sides align booking systems, loyalty programmes and flight codes. Australians have been concerned that Emirates now operate more flights from Australia to Europe than Qantas.

But Joyce said Asia was a great priority to him. "You will see the 'red tail' flying from Australia to Asia and working with partners there and leveraging those networks," he said.

Etihad Airways has meanwhile revealed it will open lounges at both Sydney and Melbourne airports next year and will be serving those cities with an Airbus A380 when it takes delivery of the flagship aircraft later in the year. Etihad holds a 10.5% stake in Virgin but has been given approval from Australia’s Foreign Investment Review Board to increase its shareholding to 19.9 %.

Analyst Saj Ahmad said: “Considering the inane and unproven slander in the past that Qantas levelled at Emirates - ranging from accusing the airline getting free fuel and landing slots and other such nonsense, for the Qantas CEO to lash out at Etihad, a carrier that has forged forward in just ten years while Qantas has gone into full speed regressive reverse, Alan Joyce's comments are as amusing as they are irrelevant.

“Qantas had no choice but to get into a pact with an Arab airline, because Qantas is losing money hand-over-fist, it continues to lose passengers to domestic rival Virgin Australia and continues to watch GCC airlines get stronger - Qantas has for years had happily plodded along with a "do-nothing" strategy until someone woke up and realised Arab airlines were killing Qantas and were not going to go away.

“If Emirates had not forced Qantas' hands, you can bet your buck that Joyce would have gone cap in hand to Etihad and or Qatar Airways - such remarks about Etihad being a "bike" just proves how out of tune the Qantas boss is when it comes to forward looking and expansionist policies of Etihad and other Arabian airlines - Qantas isn't a patch on Etihad, let alone Emirates - such forked-tongue remarks prove that Qantas simply isn't good enough to compete on product and can only resort to what is tantamount to childish and churlish invective. Perhaps if Alan Joyce put that same energy into Qantas rather than focus on rivals, perhaps he wouldn't have buckled under Emirates' pressure and started flights to Dubai, where effectively, all Qantas is doing is providing more business for Emirates and not enough for itself.”