Qantas will transfer its hub for European flights from Singapore to Dubai as part of a 10-year commercial agreement with Emirates.
The agreement will cover networks, frequencies, lounges, loyalty programmes and customer experience.
As a result Qantas and British Airways will dump their commercial agreement from March 31 next year.
There will be no equity investment by either Qantas or Emirates.
Qantas’s daily Airbus A380 services to London from Melbourne and Sydney will transit via Dubai’s Terminal 3, the world’s only purpose-built A380 terminal.
Qantas and Emirates will have exclusive use of the terminal.
Qantas will no longer service Frankfurt as a hub in Europe.
Qantas and Emirates will provide reciprocal access to tier status benefits which includes end-to-end recognition of customers, lounge access, priority check-in and boarding and more.
"The time was right for developing a long term, future forward partnership with Qantas, the iconic Australian airline," said Tim Clark, president of Emirates.
Qantas will now restructure its Asian network by increasing dedicated capacity to Singapore, and re-time flights to Singapore and Hong Kong to enable more same day connections across Asia.
The airlines will submit applications for authorisation to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) and other relevant regulatory authorities, in order to begin commercial planning.
Subject to regulatory approvals, it is anticipated that the partnership arrangements will take effect in April 2013.
