Qantas won't ditch Singapore a second time, says its chief

The Flying Kangaroo is looking for a new mate to take it in a single hop from Sydney to London but this does not mean it will ditch Singapore a second time, said the chief of Australia's Qantas.

Five years after it dumped Singapore for Dubai as a stopover for Australia-Europe flights, Qantas will resume its Sydney-Singapore-London service from March 25.

But it is also eyeing a new plane - which it has challenged both Airbus and Boeing to build - to operate the route non-stop.

Speaking to The Straits Times on the sidelines of Singapore Airshow 2018, Qantas chief executive officer Alan Joyce said he is confident such an aircraft can and will be built by 2022.

But this will not necessarily mean that the Sydney-Singapore-London service will be withdrawn again, he stressed.

"We have four landing slots at London's Heathrow Airport and we're currently using just two, so there is capacity to grow. If the Singapore-London sector works really well, supported by feeder traffic from the Jetstar (Qantas' budget arm) Asian network, why would we withdraw the service?"

With the Asia-Pacific air travel market expected to grow strongly, Qantas is keen to tap into an increasing demand for flights to and from the region to London, Mr Joyce said.

"It will all depend on the business and operating economics at the time....It's too early for us to predict," he added.

More than just a stopover point on the way to Europe, Singapore has become important as a destination in its own right for Australian traffic and a key hub for Asian traffic which is a key focus for the airline, Mr Joyce stressed.

"A decade ago, one-third each of our capacity was to Europe, Asia and the Americas. Today, more than half is to Asia. Given where we are located, it is natural that we would want to take advantage of the growth in this region," he said, adding that Singapore plays an important role in this plan.

Together with the new Sydney-Singapore-London launch, Qantas will also be adding more capacity to Singapore in the coming months with extra flights to Perth and Melbourne.

This will almost double total seat capacity to Singapore, to more than 18,000 per week.

The focus on Asia - even as Qantas pushes for a presence in the ultra long-haul market with plans to fly from Perth to London from next month and expand services from Australia to the United States - is part of a major overhaul of the business that hit rock bottom a few years ago.

Trouble started in 2011 when Qantas grounded all flights for an entire weekend amid escalating tensions with trade unions over pay, working conditions and its Asian expansion plan.

The bold move - which forced the government to intervene, ordering the airline to resume flights and banning trade unions from staging more strikes while negotiations continued - affected over 70,000 Qantas customers globally.

Three years later, in 2014, intense competition in the domestic market, high costs and surging oil prices led Qantas to axe 5,000 jobs as it reported a record A$2.8 billion loss.

Even as politicians and trade unions called on him to resign, Mr Joyce defied his opponents and put in place a three-year turnaround strategy to cut A$2 billion in costs.

Unprofitable routes were dropped even as capacity was added in stronger markets; new, more fuel-efficient aircraft were added to the fleet and in-flight products were added.

The airline also focused on customer service to build brand loyalty.

In the year to June 2016, Qantas reported its highest-ever net profit after tax of A$1.03 billion.

The following year, it made A$852 million (S$883 million), which was down 17 per cent year on year but more than what rival carriers including Singapore Airlines (SIA) earned. In the year to March 31, 2017, SIA reported net profits of $360.4 million.

Qantas may be firmly back in the black but Mr Joyce, who has steered the carrier in the last decade through its most turbulent years, is in no hurry to call it a day.

"As long as the board and shareholders want me to continue, I'm not going anywhere," said the 52-year old Irish-born Australian citizen.