EMIRATES AND QANTAS OPEN JOINT NEW ZEALAND NETWORK

Emirates and Qantas have enhanced their joint network as bookings opened for the new schedule between New Zealand and Australia.

Among a suite of changes, Qantas has retimed its existing Christchurch-Sydney service enabling more international connections from Sydney, and will launch a new Perth-Auckland service.

Emirates will continue to operate 28 flights a week to New Zealand, with daily flights to Auckland from Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane; and the daily flight between Sydney and Christchurch. From 1 October, all Emirates flights to Auckland will be operated by an Airbus A380. Qantas operates double daily A380 services from Dubai to Australia with connections to over 100 flights per week to New Zealand.

President of Emirates Tim Clark said: "These are the first significant signs of the Qantas-Emirates partnership at work across the Tasman and the advantages for our customers will continue to increase as the relationship grows," said Mr Clark. "We can expect to see benefits for the tourism industry as well, and that has got to be good news all round.

"Through the partnership, the Emirates network has now been opened up to include Queenstown and Wellington in New Zealand in addition to the 55 destinations in Australia already on offer," said Mr Clark.

Qantas Group chief executive officer Alan Joyce said the new Qantas schedule is one of many benefits to flow from the Qantas and Emirates partnership in New Zealand.

"Our new Auckland-Perth service will cater for demand over the busy holiday season and our new trans-Tasman schedule offers better flight times and more connections to flights both in Australia and around the world.

"The new Qantas and Emirates schedule offers around 130 services per week from Auckland, Christchurch, Wellington and Queenstown across the Tasman to a joint network covering more than 175 destinations in Australia, Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, the UK and Europe," said Mr Joyce.

Emirates' trans-Tasman services are operated by Airbus A380 and Boeing 777-300ER aircraft, while Qantas' services are operated by a dedicated fleet of next generation Boeing 737-800s.