There would be lesser flights by Australian flag carrier Qantas to the Middle East in 2014 when the Dubai Airport undergoes runway repairs for three months. Dubai Airport authorities advised Qantas in April for the air carrier to reduce by 50 per cent its flights to the second-busiest international airport in the world while two runways would undergo maintenance.

The runways need repair, scheduled to begin in May 2014, due to the high number of large aircraft such as the A380 that land on the Middle Eastern gateway. The civil works include laying of 180,000 tonnes of asphalt on the northern runway.

Because the scheduled repair would hit the busy European summer, Qantas has been lobbying Dubai officials to retain all of its 28 weekly landing slots during the construction period. Qantas prefers to land in that particular airport in the capital city of the United Arab Emirates than in other Dubai gateways such as those in Jebel Ali since the latter is still under construction and only started to take passenger flights recently.

The reduction of flights would also cut the number of trips of Emirates, the alliance partner of Qantas. The two partners control half of the Australia-Europe market share.

"The draft slot allocation is not carved in stone and Qantas expects to operate all its flights through Dubai, though some departure and arrival times may be adjusted slightly," Qantas International acting Chief Executive Narendra Kumar said in a statement.

Besides the looming cut in flights to Dubai, Qantas is also reducing costs and improving customer service to retain corporate travelers amid the aggressive competition posed by Virgin Australia for the same market since 2010 when John Borghetti took over the management of Virgin Australia.

With tougher competition, Qantas has added capacity to its business routes to match Virgin's and keep its current market share despite the slower growth of customer demand for business seats.

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