The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has yet again delayed a decision on the proposed buyout of Alliance Airlines (QQ, Brisbane International) by current 19.7% shareholder Qantas (QF, Sydney Kingsford Smith). The latest delay is attributed to shifts in the business relationship between the two entities.
The ACCC confirmed on March 20 that a new decision date had been set as April 20. The announcement was the fourth pushback of a previously publicised decision date. A spokesperson for the commission said: "Due to recent announcements by Qantas and Alliance about key developments regarding their existing wet-lease agreement, and fleet expansions by Alliance, the ACCC requires more time to gather and consider further information from the parties."
Qantas' bid to take 100% control of Alliance Airlines is complicated by its competitive consequences and the existing business dealings between the two airlines. A longtime Fokker operator, Alliance began buying up second-hand ERJ 190-100AR and ERJ 190-100LR aircraft in the second half of 2020, taking delivery of 27 so far. In the first quarter of 2021, it signed an E190 capacity deal with Qantas to wet-lease three Embraers to them with options for 11 more. The regional jets have gone on to prove a success at Australia's biggest airline, working skinny domestic routes, and the flag carrier has steadily increased its intake of them.
In the second quarter of 2022, Qantas announced a deal to acquire the shares in Alliance Airlines that it did not already own, sparking the ACCC inquiry. Since then, changes in the Embraer fleets at both airlines and shifting induction plans have seen the authority delay a decision from mid-November 2022 to early December to mid-March 2023 and now to April.
Most recently, a late February announcement from Alliance Airlines that it would buy 30 former JetBlue Airways (B6, New York JFK) E190s from Dublin-based lessor AerCap, and an announcement from Qantas five days earlier that it would take an additional 12 wet-leased E190s from Alliance, added even more undercurrents to the relationship between the two carriers. Currently, Alliance Airlines has eighteen of its twenty-seven E190s placed at Qantas. The latest agreement will take that to 30 as new deliveries arrive. The agreement also increases the terms of the wet leases of each aircraft from three to seven years with two-by-two-year extension options.