Qantas Freight has become a standalone entity after parent, Qantas established a holding company for the freight carrier. Qantas has transferred 50 per cent of its stake in the freight division to the new company Qantas FreightEnterprises.
The move was widely expected following Qantas’ takeover of Singapore- based express operator DPEX Worldwide last August. At the time Qantas chief executive Geoff Dixon commented that the freight unit could be successful as a stand-alone entity.
Recent wet-leases of B747 freighters from Atlas Air, have given the carrier the chance to tap into markets where it did not have traffic rights and now operates B747Fs between the US and Brazil and from the US to Frankfurt and Dubai.
In Asia, Qantas Freight has a hub in Shanghai, which it serves with passenger flights as well as five weekly freighters, which continue to the US.
In November, Qantas agreed to plead guilty to a US Department of Justice charge of conspiracy to fix prices for international air cargo shipments between January 2000 and February 2006 and accepted a fine of $61 million.
Qantas was the third carrier ¨C after Korean Air and British Airways ¨C that pleaded guilty to such charges in the US. Lufthansa, is co-operating with the European Commission, as it seeks to avoid penalties itself.