Virgin Australia and Skywest Airlines have received final approval to jointly bid for corporate contracts and charter operations as part of an expanded alliance.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) gave the tie-up the green light today, having granted the pair interim authorisation in January.
ACCC chairman Rod Sims said the alliance was likely to result in public benefits such as lower prices due to closer competition with Qantas Airways and its affiliates.
Virgin entered into a 10-year strategic alliance with the Western Australia-based Skywest in January 2011 to enable the airline to fly to regional areas.
Skywest CEO Jason Bitter said that the final approval would allow the airline to offer a wider range of solution to their corporate clients, including scheduled and charter services to regional, domestic and international destinations.
“We expect to now grow this partnership to build and offer more aligned product, customer experience and expanded network," he said.
In April, Virgin spent $8 million to take a 10 per cent stake in Skywest.
Virgin already has partnerships with Singapore Airlines, Delta Air Lines and Air New Zealand, among others.
Meanwhile, Skywest has confirmed that it will cancel its Geraldton-Kalgoorlie flights from 11 May and its Geraldton- Port Hedland-Karratha-Geraldton flight from June 18. Both flights were operated once weekly.
The changes will see the airline retain a weekly nonstop Geraldton-Port Hedland service, while its Kalgoorlie-Melbourne services will now originate in Perth rather than Geraldton.
Skywest’s executive general manager commercial Alan Sturt told WA Business News that the cuts were “purely commercial” both were performing below expectations.
