Qantas has announced plans to reroute its current A380 Sydney-Dubai-London service via Singapore from next year, as part of an extended partnership with Emirates (subject to re-authorisation from regulators).

The two carriers have been working together on flights between Europe and Australia for the last five years, and said that the changes “will see the airlines better leveraging each other’s networks, by providing three options to Australia from Europe – via Dubai and Singapore, and direct to Perth”.

From March 25, 2018, the existing QF1 and QF 2 A380 services will reroute via Singapore, replacing one of the carrier’s existing Singapore-Sydney A330 flights (with the second daily service continuing to be operated by an A330).

On the same day Qantas will upgrade its daily Singapore-Melbourne services (QF35 and QF36) to the A380, as well as increasing a second thrice-weekly A330 flight (QF37 and QF38) to daily.

The changes will coincide with the launch of the carrier’s direct Dreamliner flights between London Heathrow and Perth in March next year.

This service will route London-Perth-Melbourne, and will replace the existing London-Dubai-Melbourne flights, meaning Qantas will no longer offer any services to Dubai on its own metal.

Announcing the news Qantas CEO Alan Joyce said that the carrier’s partnership with Emirates “has evolved to a point where Qantas no longer needs to fly its own aircraft through Dubai, and that means we can redirect some of our A380 flying into Singapore and meet the strong demand we’re seeing in Asia”.

“Improvements in aircraft technology means the Qantas network will eventually feature a handful of direct routes between Europe and Australia, but this will never overtake the sheer number of destinations served by Emirates and that’s why Dubai will remain an important hub for our customers,” Joyce added.

Emirates’ president Sir Tim Clark said that the carrier saw “an opportunity to offer customers an even stronger product proposition for travel to Dubai, and onward connectivity to our extensive network in Europe, Middle East and Africa”, promising updates in the coming weeks.

Tickets for the new Qantas services will be available from tomorrow, and customers with existing bookings impacted by the changes “will be re-accommodated onto the airlines’ new services or will be given the option to change their flights”.

The Australian flag carrier said that the changes would bring an annualized net benefit of more than AU$80 million from FY19 onwards.

The airline said that customer demand from flights from London to Australia via Dubai “will remain well-served”, with a total of 77 weekly Emirates services from Dubai to Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney.

qantas.com.au, emirates.com