What's the deal with Qatar and Canberra?
It's actually all about Virgin!
News this week is that Qatar Airways will return to Canberra from December 2025, operating daily one-stop flights via Melbourne. This is not the first time that Qatar have served Canberra, having previously operated one-stop flights via Sydney between February 2018 and March 2020.
What makes this flight interesting is that it was never about accessing the Canberra market but rather Qatar accessing additional frequencies to Sydney and later Melbourne. As we discussed last year, Qatar is limited to 28x weekly flights to Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney, but has unlimited capacity to other cities (e.g. Adelaide). They’re able to access an additional 7x weekly flights to Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney provided they operate via or onward to another city (e.g. Adelaide or Canberra).
Between February 2018 and March 2020, Qatar utilised the additional frequencies to Sydney with an onward leg to Canberra. Since December 2022 they have been utilised to Melbourne with an onward leg to Adelaide. The Melbourne-Adelaide leg has been described by many as a “ghost flight” since this flight generally operates near empty. Its purpose isn’t to serve Adelaide, which Qatar serve with daily non-stop flights, but to exploit a “loophole” to gain more market access.
This was also the case with the previous Sydney-Canberra flight. BITRE data shows that Qatar carried an average of 38 passengers on each flight to/from Canberra despite an the aircraft having capacity for 358 or 327 passengers.
So why are Qatar returning to Canberra? Is there more than meets the eye? To understand this, let’s have a look at recent developments between Qatar and Virgin Australia.
Qatar-Virgin Joint Venture
In October (11 October to be precise), Virgin and Qatar jointly applied to the ACCC for approval of a joint venture. This follows an announcement a few weeks earlier that Qatar was to acquire a 25% stake in Virgin and enter into a wetlease agreement whereby Qatar would operate several B777-300ER aircraft on behalf of Virgin to fly long haul routes between Australia and Doha. A wetlease means that Qatar will operate the aircraft on behalf of Virgin, including provision of all crew and maintenance.
Many commentators have misunderstood the purpose of the ACCC application. The ACCC is not tasked with approving the equity or wetlease deal, rather to approve the joint venture. A joint venture isn’t a codeshare agreement whereby one airline sells capacity of another airline as they own, rather it is where airlines jointly sell capacity, meaning they can coordinate scheduling, pricing, ticketing, etc. Essentially, any ticketing combination will be available at identical pricing simultaneously on both carriers.
A joint venture is crucial to the commercial success of these flights and Virgin wouldn’t take the commercial risk without it. It’s also inevitable that ACCC will approve the joint venture, however they are likely to impose some conditions (we’ll come back to this later).
In the ACCC submission, Virgin propose operating 4x daily flights from Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney to Doha, complementing Qatar’s flights. However, this application doesn’t provide further scheduling details. The joint venture received interim approval from the ACCC on 29 November that enabled Virgin to beginning making more detailed preparations including acquisition of the appropriate slots. A final determination will only be made next year.
Qatar-Virgin Joint Venture: step two
The day after the ACCC’s interim approval, Virgin applied to the IASC for allocation of the bilateral capacity. This also gave us our first look at their longhaul rollout and schedule. Starting in June 2025 (NS25 season), Virgin intend to operate 1x daily flight between Brisbane, Perth and Sydney to Doha, and add 1x daily flight between Melbourne and Doha from November (i.e. NW25/26). Qatar already serve Melbourne 2x daily (remember the ghost flight!), hence the prioritisation of Brisbane, Perth and Sydney.
As we argued last year, Qatar’s quest to gain additional frequencies to Australia was not simply about capacity but gaining additional frequencies. For example, they could already have increased capacity between Doha and Melbourne by upgauging the flight from the B777-300ER to A380, giving them a 46% increase in capacity. However, frequency is more important as a 2nd daily flight would be timed to allow a different range of connections in Doha.
Qatar’s Doha hub follows a banked hub model. As we highlighted in out analysis of Emirates’s Dubai hub in October, banked hubs thrives off frequency rather than capacity. Qatar’s strategy differs from Emirates’s by targeting a much larger number of destinations, utilising their more varied fleet. The result is that Qatar fly a range of routes daily or less than daily with a fragmented schedule that feeds different connecting banks on different days.
For example*, Budapest is flown daily but with a split schedule. The outbound leaves Doha at 2:50am on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and at 9:15am on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. The inbound arrives in Doha at 4:20pm on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and at 10:00pm on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday.
QR201 DOH BUD 02:50 06:30 M W F
QR199 DOH BUD 09:15 13:15 Tu Th Sa Su
QR202 BUD DOH 09:05 16:20 M W F
QR200 BUD DOH 14:45 22:00 Tu Th Sa SuThe implications are significant. For example, flying Brisbane-Doha-Budapest is only possible four days a week as QR 899 from Brisbane to Doha only connects with QR 199 from Doha to Budapest, and not with QR 201. On the return, Budapest-Doha-Brisbane is only possible three days a week as QR 202 only connects with QR 898, while QR 200 doesn’t. But this is where Virgin’s flights come in!
QR899 BNE DOH 21:55 05:45+1 D
QR898 DOH BNE 20:25 17:30+1 DNote: * these schedules reflect NW24/25; schedules showing Virgin’s new flights are for NS25 and thus reflect adjusted seasonal timings, but are broadly comparable.
Virgin’s Doha schedule
As expected, Virgin’s schedule is nearly a mirror image of Qatar’s. For example, Qatar’s existing Brisbane flight departs Doha at 8:25pm, whereas Virgin’s new flight will depart Doha at 1:40am. This additional redundancy will now allow daily connections from Budapest: QR 202 connects to QR 898 (Monday, Wednesday, Friday), while QR 200 connects to VA 16 (Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, Sunday).
The same redundancy will be generated with the 2nd daily flight to/from Perth, albeit with the timings in reverse, and 2nd daily flight to/from Sydney (albeit connecting from a different bank in Doha).
VA16 DOH BNE 01:40 22:45
QR988* DOH MEL 03:05 23:30
QR900 DOH PER 02:30 18:35
VA2 DOH SYD 09:15 06:15+1
VA22 DOH PER 19:50 11:55+1
QR898 DOH BNE 20:25 17:30+1
QR908 DOH SYD 20:15 17:10+1
QR914 DOH ADL 20:20 15:30+1
QR904 DOH MEL 20:15 16:45+1
* Continues onto MEL-ADL 5:40+1 6:40+1The same will occur for the return legs with Virgin’s schedule again mirroring Qatar’s. Looking at Brisbane again, Virgin’s new flight will arrive in Doha at 11pm whereas Qatar’s original flight will arrive in Doha at 6:00am. Again using Budapest as an example, the additional redundancy now allows connections to Budapest daily instead of just 3x weekly with the single Brisbane frequency: QR 899 connects to QR 199 (Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, Sunday), while VA 15 connects to QR 201 (Monday, Wednesday, Friday).
QR905 MEL DOH 21:00 04:30+1
QR915 ADL DOH 21:40 04:55+1
QR909 SYD DOH 20:45 04:55+1
QR901 PER DOH 22:45 05:15+1
QR899 BNE DOH 22:15 06:00+1
VA21 PER DOH 15:20 21:50
QR989* MEL DOH 15:15 22:45
VA1 SYD DOH 14:50 22:50
VA15 BNE DOH 15:10 23:00
* Continues from ADL-MEL 11:40 13:30The timings of Virgin’s Brisbane-Doha flights closely resemble Qatar’s 2nd daily Melbourne flight (the infamous Adelaide ghost flight). As we’ve previously argued, this flight is an exploitation of the “loophole” that allows Qatar to fly a 5th daily flight to Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth or Sydney.
Given that Qatar already serve Adelaide non-stop and the peculiar timings of the onwards Melbourne-Adelaide sector (with the Melbourne stopover exceeding 6 hours), it’s clearly not intended to serve Adelaide. But why are they switching this to Canberra, and why from November?
Thanks ACCC, no really, thanks!
When the Virgin-Qatar deal was launched we suspected that the ghost flight wouldn’t last. We speculated that Virgin would simply replace Qatar on the Melbourne-Doha sectors of the 2nd daily flight, and dropping the ghost legs to/from Adelaide. This would have resulted in a net addition of 3x daily flights, despite Virgin operating 4x daily.
We suggested earlier that the ACCC will impose conditions on the Qatar-Virgin joint venture when the final determination is made next year. Typically, the ACCC requires that joint ventures don’t result in airlines colluding to reduce capacity. These can be very broad definitions of capacity but can also be granular route-specific capacity conditions. For example, as part of the Qantas-Emirates joint venture, Emirates have been required to maintain capacity on their 5th freedom route between Sydney and Christchurch.
It’s likely that the ACCC will require Qatar to maintain it’s capacity as a condition. Meanwhile, Virgin have also now made a commitment to 4x daily flights. This means that one of Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth or Sydney will need to be served 3x daily as part of the joint venture. This is likely an externality, and Qatar and Virgin are now ensuring that the 3rd daily Melbourne flight won’t generate an overcapacity in the market.
One way to do this is to shift the ghost flight to a different onward destination that’ll be more likely to provide additional demand. While the previously presented data showed very small passenger numbers to/from Canberra, this is still likely significantly more than are currently accomodate on the ghost legs to/from Adelaide (recalling that Qatar serve Adelaide daily with non-stop flights).
So Canberra fits the bill, but this also requires the flight to be retimed as the current schedule is rather obtuse. No Canberra passenger is going to want to spend more than 6 hours in transit at Melbourne between 11:30pm and 5:40am!
To make this happen, Qatar have retimed the outbound Doha-Melbourne sector from a 3:05am departure to a 8:30am departure. Combined with a slight adjustment of the onward leg from Melbourne, the transit time will be a more reasonable 1 hour and 45 minutes, and a well-timed arrival in Canberra at 8:50am (note: times are for NW25/25).
QR988 DOH MEL 02:20 23:45
QR988 MEL ADL 05:35+1 06:35+1
QR989 ADL MEL 12:50 14:40
QR989 MEL DOH 17:10 23:30
QR988 DOH MEL 08:30 05:55+1
QR988 MEL CBR 07:40+1 08:50+1
QR989 CBR MEL 13:10 14:25
QR989 MEL DOH 16:10 22:30The return to Doha is slightly retimed reflecting variations between summer and winter timetables, however the significant change in the inbound legs from Doha gives us a significant hint at what to expect from Virgin’s Melbourne-Doha flight from November 2025.
What will Virgin’s Melbourne schedule look like?
Virgin haven’t as yet published their schedule for their Melbourne-Doha flights from November 2025, however with the retiming of the current Qatar flights, we can only speculate.
With Qatar’s 2nd daily Doha-Melbourne shifting from a 2:20am departure to an 8:30am departure (similar to Virgin’s new Doha-Sydney flight), it’s likely that Virgin will take over a similar schedule to Qatar’s original 2nd daily Doha-Melbourne timing, at around 2:20am. This will pick up the previous connections that this flight made (e.g. helping connect daily from Budapest).
VA16 DOH BNE 01:40 22:45
VAXXX* DOH MEL 02:20 23:45
QR900 DOH PER 02:30 18:35
QR988** DOH MEL 08:30 05:55+1
VA2 DOH SYD 09:15 06:15+1
VA22 DOH PER 19:50 11:55+1
QR904 DOH MEL 20:15 16:45+1
QR908 DOH SYD 20:15 17:10+1
QR914 DOH ADL 20:20 15:30+1
QR898 DOH BNE 20:25 17:30+1
* Predicted VA DOH-MEL flights
** Continues onto MEL-CBR 07:40+1 08:50+1It’s a little more complicated to predict the Melbourne-Doha timings as the 2nd daily Qatar Melbourne-Doha flights broadly maintains its schedule. Furthermore, no other outbound flights from Australia arrive into a different connecting bank at Doha, so your guess is as good as ours!
QR905 MEL DOH 21:00 04:30+1
QR915 ADL DOH 21:40 04:55+1
QR909 SYD DOH 20:45 04:55+1
QR901 PER DOH 22:45 05:15+1
QR899 BNE DOH 22:15 06:00+1
VA21 PER DOH 15:20 21:50
VA1 SYD DOH 14:50 22:50
VA15 BNE DOH 15:10 23:00
QR989** MEL DOH 17:10 23:30
VAXXX* MEL DOH XX:XX XX:XX
* Predicted VA DOH-MEL flights
** Continues from CBR-MEL 13:10 14:25Tip of the cap to Qatar
The strategy is clear: if Qatar are going to have to continue flying the ghost flight, they’re now looking for it to displace a little capacity on the underlying Melbourne legs as they throw an incredible amount of capacity at the market. Canberra helps by providing some incremental capacity with nearly no additional risk compared to the status quo.
However, to make this flight competitive it’s had to retime the schedule, generating a range of other changes mitigated by the likelihood of Virgin’s Doha-Melbourne leg to take over very similar times to the previous Qatar times - we’ll happily make a wager on this if anyone is interested! However, with no substantive schedule changes for the Melbourne-Doha leg we’re intrigued at what Qatar and Virgin will come up with!
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