King says decision to block Qatar flights wasn’t to protect Qantas

Transport Minister Catherine King says her decision to block Qatar Airways expanding its services into Australia’s four biggest airports was not to protect Qantas, despite earlier claims she had done so to save local aviation jobs and to assist the national carrier’s recovery from the pandemic.

Ms King told The Australian Financial Review Infrastructure Summit she “very clearly did not take the commercial interests of either Qantas or Virgin into consideration when I was making that decision”.