Qantas entertains the idea of a merger...

[Montague S]

seems that this is the word of the moment!

QANTAS is willing to entertain merger talks with another airline and join the wave of consolidation gripping the US and European aviation sectors.

Almost a year after the failed takeover attempt by a Macquarie Bank-led consortium, Qantas's chief financial officer, Peter Gregg, said the company was open to merger talks.

"We keep saying we are interested and will keep looking. The rest of the world will keep consolidating because the industry needs to rationalise," he told the Herald yesterday.

"Whether this brings anybody else that might be interested - we will keep a lookout for that. Like in any relationship, both parties need to be interested."

Singapore Airlines has long been considered the perfect partner, while it has even been rumoured that Qantas could form a marriage with American Airlines.

But Mr Gregg said the carrier had not resurrected any merger talks with the Singaporeans.

The US carriers Delta Air Lines and Northwest Airlines are the latest to pursue a merger, in a deal that is expected to unleash more consolidation as carriers around the world battle rising oil prices.

Mr Gregg's comments yesterday came as Qantas said it would raise domestic fares by about 3.5 per cent across all classes of flights on Qantas and QantasLink from May 9, while the price of international tickets will increase by 3 per cent.

Qantas has also suspended indefinitely the buying back of its shares, which has returned more than $500 million to shareholders since September.

Mr Gregg said Qantas had decided to adopt a conservative approach while it gauged the likely outlook for the aviation industry, including fuel prices, and credit markets.

"There is a lot of uncertainty in the industry at the moment and we want to understand where it all leads to … rather than just return capital to shareholders," he said. "You can't say [oil prices] won't go higher."

Qantas has fuel hedged at about $US76 a barrel until June 30 - about a 40 per cent discount to the current oil price - while 34 per cent of its jet fuel needs for 2008-09 are hedged at $US90 a barrel.

The airline said that "if high fuel prices persist beyond this point it would be of increasing concern".

Oil prices hit a record of almost $US120 a barrel yesterday due to a strike closing an important pipeline in Britain and renewed violence in resource-rich Nigeria.

Shares in Qantas rose 4c to $3.41 yesterday, 42 per cent less than four months ago. Virgin Blue fell 1c to 85c and Air New Zealand dipped 3c to 98c.

http://business.smh.com.au/qantas-ge...0428-294h.html

[D Chan]

don't see how the roo could ever merge with AA :P

[Will T]

There was an interesting article from a few weeks back, which played with the idea of a consolidated (or at least highly integrated) BA-QF-AA entity. Something along these lines (but perhaps with different partners) will surely be in place within the next 5-10 years, imho.