Qantas Cancels its 40 Year Old Membership of AAPA

Qantas Airways (QAN), a worldwide known air transportation service provider that offers its service in both the local and international market have ended its link with Association of Asia Pacific Airlines (AAPA) by canceling its membership from that organization. It is to be mentioned that Qantas remained as the member of AAPA for 40 years. The decision made by Qantas to exit the AAPA stunned a whole lot of people as they consider the association very much important for Qantas as far as its prospects regarding long term growth in the Asia-Pacific region is taken under consideration. Association of Asia Pacific Airlines has 17 members in the group including Cathay Pacific and Singapore Airlines. In multiple occasions the association appeared as the breeding ground for alliances.

While explaining its decision to walk out of the association, the Qantas authority stated that it took the decision to end its membership at AAPA as it is more interested to establish relationship directly with the other airlines instead of through AAPA. Alan Joyce, the Qantas chief is expected to come up with details of a tie-up between its low-cost offshoot, Jetstar and Malaysian airline AirAsia on Wednesday in an attempt to cut costs. However, some believes that the arrival of AirAsia chief Tony Fernandes AirAsia in Sydney on Wednesday to attend the news conference is mainly to increase pressure on the public float of Tiger Airways.

David Epstein, the government affairs chief of Qantas stated that the airway’s decision to end its AAPA membership was motivated by its interests that go beyond the ones that the association is focusing on. Under the current circumstances, it is much more appropriate for Qantas to mange its stakeholder relationships in the Asia-Pacific region directly or in tandem with its airline partners in this region, he added.