Flying Kangaroo faces further turbulence over Dubai detour
QANTAS has defended its new arrangements with Emirates Airlines, which will see the flagship Australian carrier route its flights between Australia and London through Dubai. The new arrangements resulted from Qantas signing a 10-year partnership with Emirates that sees it changing its European transit hub from Singapore to Dubai.
QANTAS has defended its new arrangements with Emirates Airlines, which will see the flagship Australian carrier route its flights between Australia and London through Dubai.
The new arrangements resulted from Qantas signing a 10-year partnership with Emirates that sees it changing its European transit hub from Singapore to Dubai.
As reported by The AJN earlier this month, the announcement has caused dismay among Jewish patrons of Qantas, as Dubai, part of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), prohibits Israeli passport holders entering its territory other than to proceed to another destination and, if a flight is delayed, Israelis are not permitted to leave the airport.
In a letter subsequently sent “to community groups and concerned customers”, Qantas’s executive relations officer, Angela Lofaro, confirmed that Israeli passport holders can transit Dubai without requiring a visa and that travellers with an Israel stamp in their passports will be able to enter Dubai.
Lofaro further stated that it will always be made clear to customers whether they will be travelling on a Qantas or an Emirates flight and that Emirates do offer kosher meals.
“I respect that for political, religious or other reasons, Israeli or Jewish Qantas customers may prefer not to travel via Dubai. Qantas will continue to offer services to Singapore, Bangkok and Hong Kong, which will connect with our other partners such as British Airways through to Europe,” she said. “I also expect that Qantas-operated services to Bangkok and Hong Kong will continue to be a common means by which to connect to services through to Israel.”
However, according to a press release issued earlier this month, Qantas will be terminating its joint business with the International Airlines Group of which British Airways is a subsidiary. The joint business enabled close cooperation on services between Australia and the United Kingdom, and will no longer be available from March 2013.
Executive Council of Australian Jewry executive director Peter Wertheim welcomed Qantas’s explanation, but reiterated his call for an official statement from the UAE and from Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs. “The question is not addressed in specific terms and ought to be put beyond doubt by a definitive statement from the UAE government. Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs should also issue a statement confirming that the assurances given by Qantas about the status of Australian travellers in the UAE can be relied on by its customers.”
Meanwhile, a spokesperson for Virgin Australia, which uses UAE carrier Etihad via Abu Dhabi for flights to Europe, said Jewish passengers had other options. Currently, Virgin Australia offers a code-share arrangement with Virgin Atlantic travelling via Hong Kong, and Virgin also has an inter-line agreement with Singapore Airlines. Both the code-share and inter-line bookings need to be made with a travel agent or through the Virgin international long-haul team.
The Flying Kangaroo’s Dubai hop-over has also raised broader concerns. Liberal Senator Helen Kroger told Parliament last week that as well as Jews, the new flight route could affect a wide range of Australians, citing arbitrary arrests at Dubai airport monitored by British humanitarian group Detained In Dubai. They include an Australian detained for several months and two Canadians held for a month over a pharmaceutical anti-arthritis drug they possessed.
Kroger also cited cases of Australian business executives arrested on fraud charges later found to have been concocted, and an Australian woman raped after her drink was spiked, who now faces charges over extramarital sex under Dubai’s draconian penal code.
With Dubai law prescribing 10 years’ imprisonment for “consensual sodomy”, gay Australians could also find themselves in jeopardy, she said.
Kroger told the Senate that while she valued “the commercial interests of our premier carrier”, these should not be placed ahead of “human rights and safekeeping of Australian citizens”.
PETER KOHN
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