Australia's top airline Qantas will no longer be routing its European flights through Dubai.
After five years of using Dubai as its stopover to Europe, the carrier will revert to transiting flights through Singapore as of March 2018. However, the airline will maintain its partnership with Dubai's flagship carrier Emirates.
According to ABC, consumer surveys have shown that passengers strongly preferred a stopover in Asia as opposed to the Middle East in recent years.
"For Qantas to maintain its market share on the Australia-London route, it needed to restore Singapore as a stopover destination," Strategic Aviation Solutions' chairman Neil Hansford told ABC.
A win for Singapore?
Bloomberg calls the decision a victory for Singapore, which competes internationally with Dubai for a share of long-haul traffic between East and West.
"Reverting Qantas’s 82-year-old, long-haul service through Asia reflects a shift in the balance of power away from the Gulf as the world’s key aviation hubs, including Singapore, Hong Kong, and Dubai, joust to retain their roles as key transit points for regional flights," the business publication reports.
Back in 2012, Qantas stopped routing its flights to the United Kingdom and Europe through Singapore, switching to Dubai. This happened around the same time the Australian carrier ditched partner airline British Airways to cozy up with Emirates.
Qantas still partners with Emirates
Despite the decision to ditch Dubai, Qantas will continue its partnership with Emirates.
"Our partnership has evolved to a point where Qantas no longer needs to fly its own aircraft through Dubai," Qantas chief executive officer Alan Joyce said.
"That means we can redirect some of our A380 flying into Singapore and meet the strong demand we're seeing in Asia," he explained.
Currently, Asia is the world's fastest growing travel market. China is even expected to surpass the United States as the world's largest aviation market around 2024.