Oneworld Alliance members British Airways and Qatar Airways are in talks to enhance cooperation beyond their current codesharing partnership.
Qatar Airways CEO Akbar Al Baker was asked at the IATA AGM in Doha if he was interested in a joint venture with British Airways. “Why not?” he replied.
International Airlines Group (IAG) CEO and oneworld chairman Willie Walsh is also quoted as saying that various forms of potential cooperation were being studied.
Walsh said: “We look at various different structures of joint ventures. You can have a revenue share, you can have a profit share, you can have things that fall between the middle. These are the sorts of issues that are subject to discussions between us. It won’t necessarily have to mean a profit share, but we will have discussions about these issues in the right time.”