Qantas must remain Australian-owned for reasons of national security, even if a potential merger with British Airways goes ahead, Australian Transport Minister Anthony Albanese said yesterday.
The two airlines announced last week they were in talks to create a global carrier worth an estimated A$8 billion (US$5.2 billion) to help cope with the global financial crisis.
Albanese acknowledged that consolidation was inevitable for the industry, which has been buffeted by previously high oil prices and now declining passenger numbers.
But he said that needed to be “balanced” with the national interest.
“There are national security issues, particularly for an island continent located on the globe where Australia is, for having a national airline,” he told the Australian Broadcasting Corp (ABC).
Under Australian law, the carrier popularly known here as the “Flying Kangaroo” must remain at least 51 percent Australian-owned, with its headquarters in the country.
Albanese said the recent political protests in Thailand, which shut down Bangkok’s main airport for a week, illustrated the importance of having Qantas remain majority Australian owned.
“When Australians were having difficulty departing from Thailand I was able to pick up the phone to the chief executive of Qantas, Alan Joyce, and make the request that extra flights be put on,” he told ABC television.
The minister also said that given international air service agreements, which are negotiated between countries rather than airlines, it was necessary for Qantas to remain in Australian hands.
“For example, only a 51 percent Australian-based airline is eligible to fly from Australia to Japan,” he said.
Albanese said while the foreign ownership rule will stay, the government was open to changing other restrictions which limit individual foreign holdings to 25 percent and aggregate foreign airline interests to a 35 percent stake.
He said this would help Qantas stay on a “level playing field” with its competitors amid unfavorable market conditions.
Qantas and British Airways have said they are exploring a potential merger “via a dual-listed company structure” and Albanese said that he was confident any deal would not breach the Australian regulations contained in the Qantas Sale Act.
“The aviation industry is going through turbulent times. We have seen more than 30 airlines disappear this year alone,” he said.
“In terms of growing alliances and consolidation, we will see what the future brings, but Qantas certainly have put no proposals to the government which would lift the provisions [of the Qantas Sale Act].”
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
GEOPOLITICAL CONCERNS: Foreign companies such as Nissan, Volkswagen and Konica Minolta have pulled back their operations in China this year Foreign companies pulled more money from China last quarter, a sign that some investors are still pessimistic even as Beijing rolls out stimulus measures aimed at stabilizing growth. China’s direct investment liabilities in its balance of payments dropped US$8.1 billion in the third quarter, data released by the Chinese State Administration of Foreign Exchange showed on Friday. The gauge, which measures foreign direct investment (FDI) in China, was down almost US$13 billion for the first nine months of the year. Foreign investment into China has slumped in the past three years after hitting a record in 2021, a casualty of geopolitical tensions,
‘SOMETHING SPECIAL’: Donald Trump vowed to reward his supporters, while President William Lai said he was confident the Taiwan-US partnership would continue Donald Trump was elected the 47th president of the US early yesterday morning, an extraordinary comeback for a former president who was convicted of felony charges and survived two assassination attempts. With a win in Wisconsin, Trump cleared the 270 electoral votes needed to clinch the presidency. As of press time last night, The Associated Press had Trump on 277 electoral college votes to 224 for US Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party’s nominee, with Alaska, Arizona, Maine, Michigan and Nevada yet to finalize results. He had 71,289,216 votes nationwide, or 51 percent, while Harris had 66,360,324 (47.5 percent). “We’ve been through so
RSS