Qantas has agreed to sell its in-house catering unit to dnata, as it looks to focus on its core airline operations.
Qantas is offloading the Q Catering and Snap Fresh businesses to the Emirates Group unit along with 1,200 employees.
No financial terms were disclosed and the deal is subject to Australian Competition and Consumer Commission scrutiny.
"We’ve always said that we would explore the sale of certain assets where it makes sense. The catering businesses will benefit significantly from dnata’s global footprint," said Andrew David, chief executive of Qantas Domestic.
Q Catering has food prep centres in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth and dnata has an agreement to supply catering for Qantas for at least 10 years.
"This agreement reflects our confidence in Australia as a market and the ongoing growth potential into the future. By combining dnata’s network strength and international talent with Qantas’ domestic catering expertise, this will allow us to further grow our presence and deliver catering excellence to more customers ," said dnata’s divisional senior vice president of catering, Robin Padgett.
Dnata already has a workforce of about 4000 people in Australia in its catering, cargo and ground handling businesses.
