Chart of the week #25: How Gulf carriers came to dominate the Australia-UK market
Our last chart of the week looked at the most recent Australia-Europe market shares, showing Emirates and Qatar Airways to be the clear market leaders with 30% and 21% market share, respectively, and Singapore Airlines (11%) and Qantas (9%) a distant 3rd and 4th.
The context of that post was the return of Virgin Australia Qatar Airways to long haul flying with their inaugural Sydney-Doha flight. The post highlighting how Emirates are likely to see their dominance between Australia and Europe significantly challenged in the coming years.
Chart of the week #24: Australia-Europe market share
Last week, Virgin Australia Qatar Airways returned to the long-haul skies with their first flight to Doha under their new joint venture partnership and wet-lease arrangement with Qatar Airways. We posted a somewhat cynical comment on social media, highlighting how the nature of this arrangement is an externality of an obstinate government, a very aggres…
A more interesting proposition is how these market shares have changed over time, and particularly how the rise in Gulf carriers like Emirates, Etihad Airways and Qatar has affected home market carriers like Qantas and British Airways, and transit carriers like Singapore Airlines.
It’s a more complicated question than it appears. And looking at the evolution of this traffic over time we also thought that it’s better to separate the United Kingdom from Europe, but why?
ABS data shows that 43% of travel between Australia and Europe over the last year (year ending June 2025) was to/from the UK and Ireland. By comparison the next largest are Italy, France and Germany with 11%, 8% and 8%, respectively, and the remaining 30% of the market is highly fragmented. In many cases, these markets aren’t available as one-stop connections on many carriers, whereas Gulf carriers offer a much wider range of European one-stop connecting options to/from Australia. However, one thing all these carriers do have in common though is that they all serve the UK!
Number of one-stop destinations served between Australia and European:
Qatar Airways: 50
Emirates: 32
Etihad Airways: 37
Cathay Pacific: 12
Singapore Airways: 12
Qantas: 3
Malaysia Airlines: 2
British Airways: 1
A second complication is that while transit carriers offer their service through a single hub (i.e., Emirates through Dubai, or Malaysia through Kuala Lumpur), home carriers like Qantas and BA (and historically Virgin Atlantic) have offered their services through a range of hubs, or in the case of Qantas, direct on the Perth-London route.
While Qantas and BA currently push all their transit traffic through Singapore, Qantas previously transited through Bangkok, Dubai and Hong Kong, while BA have also operated via Bangkok, and when Virgin Atlantic operated the route they transited via Hong Kong.
So to answer the question, we focus the analysis on the UK rather than Europe, and airlines rather than transit points!
We didn’t have to do much original data analysis on this, rather we looked through the treasure trove of ACCC submissions, going as far back as Qantas and BA’s joint venture application (2000), Qantas and Emirates’s applications (2013, 2018 and 2023), and most recently Virgin and Qatar’s (2024). This allowed us to piece together the market shares, albeit with some breaks and inconsistent time periods. It paints a fascinating picture!
Looking back at the 1990s, the Gulf carriers played no role in the Australia-UK market! This isn’t surprising as Emirates only entered the Australian market in 1996. Other gulf carriers like Gulf Air served Australia but on a much smaller scale, and Etihad and Qatar only entered the market in 2007 and 2009, respectively.
In the late 1990s, Qantas and BA were the dominant carriers between Australia and the UK with 31% and 14% of the market each. Qantas offered 2x/day flights, while BA offered 3x/day flights. By 2003, Qantas had increased their offering to 3x/day (and a 4th in late 2004), and saw their market share increase to 34%, while BA saw their market share decline to 10%.
Qantas’s market share consistently declined, falling to 25% in 2012 before cratering to 16% in 2014 following the reduction in their number of flights from 4x to 2x/day in 2012. Their market share has since recovered to 20% following the introduction of non-stop flights from Perth. Meanwhile, BA’s market share is now just 5%, following a reduction to 2x/day in 2006 and to its present offering of 1x/day in 2012.
Qantas and BA’s loss has been Emirates’s gain! From nothing in 1998 to 32% in 2014, Emirates has become a juggernaut! Since it’s 2014 peak, Emirates’s market share has declined to 23% of the market, however they remain the market leader. Interesting, Emirates’s declining market share over the last decade coincided with the entry of Etihad and Qatar, although Etihad’s own troubles have reduced their market share in recent years.
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Emirates held 26% of the market in 2019, ahead of Etihad and Qatar with 11% each, combining for 48% of the market. This suggests that a significant chunk of Etihad and Qatar’s growth was simply cannibalising Emirates, as nearly a third of Etihad and Qatar’s gain since 2019 was accounted for in Emirates’s decline. Notably, Qantas, Singapore, Cathay and BA held their market shares during this time, indicating that smaller carriers like Malaysia were also significant casualties (7% to 2%).
Since the pandemic, Emirates has lost further ground, seeing their market share decline to 23%, while Etihad have wilted to just 4%. The combined loss of 10 percentage points has been offset by gains at Qatar and Qantas, gaining 6 and 4 percentage points each.
One constant player over the last decade has been Singapore, maintaining a market share of between 11% and 13% since 2010. However, they have also felt the impact of Gulf carriers, having consistently achieved market shares between 16% and 18% in the early 2000s. Cathay also maintained relatively consistent market shares over time, but have struggled to return capacity in the post pandemic era.
Conclusion
Over the last two decades, Gulf carriers have come to dominate the Australia-UK market, now accounting for nearly half of the market. Qantas and BA have been the major casualties, although Qantas have done well to recover and increase market shares in recent years. Smaller transit carriers like Malaysia Airlines have suffered large losses, while larger transit carriers like Singapore have also suffered losses.
The more recent emergence of Qatar has thrown a spanner in the works as they now compete effectively with other Gulf carriers, winning significant chunks of market share from Emirates and Etihad. No carriers have been safe and to some extent, Qantas and Singapore remain ever present, having held their market share well over the last decade while the Gulf carriers fight it out, and in the case of Qantas, have even seen meaningful gains.