Albanese is facing pressure to explain his ties to ex-Qantas boss Alan Joyce, and it’s revived an old decision

Anthony Albanese’s purported close relationship with former Qantas boss Alan Joyce has reawakened questions about the federal government’s decision to block a Qantas competitor’s bid to expand in Australia.

Mr Albanese now flatly denies claims he made personal requests to Mr Joyce to have his flights upgraded, which has raised debate around politician perks.

The prime minister declared the upgrades he received and in a statement a spokesperson added he “did not ever call Alan Joyce seeking an upgrade”.

But it has also revived debate from last year about how the government came to its decision to reject a Qatar Airways bid to expand its flights in and out of Australia.

As Australia exited the COVID-19 pandemic, Qatar Airways applied to add 21 extra weekly flights at Australian airports.

It was hoped to cut air fares at a time costs were soaring, but Qantas opposed it.

The application was ultimately rejected.

The federal government has dodged what meetings it had with Mr Joyce about the matter, and its explanations at the time about why the decision was made were inconsistent.

Ministers variously cited the “national interest”, suggested the request may have been too large, that the government was protecting Qantas’ viability and that a 2020 incident in which women were strip-searched at Doha airport had been a factor.

Pressure in parliament to get a straight answer yielded little.

Now the issue is back in the frame, the Coalition is considering whether it can try again to bring Mr Joyce before an inquiry and examine claims of his relationship with Mr Albanese.

Here is a timeline of how the original Qatar Airways decision unfolded:

The Qatar Airways decision landed at a time when Qantas was on the nose and customer frustration with the airline was at its peak — not to mention frustrations that the government did not take a step that could have brought down prices when people were feeling the pain of inflation and interest rate rises.

The competition watchdog said the Qatar Airways expansion would have lowered air fares, and Ms Hrdlicka said it could have cut prices by as much as 40 per cent.

There are still questions about how the minister came to her decision, what meetings if any Ms King and Mr Albanese had with Alan Joyce, and whether the Doha incident was its justification for rejecting Qatar Airways — as well as a continuing suggestion by the Coalition that the government sided with Qantas in return for the airline’s support in the Voice referendum campaign, which is fiercely disputed by Labor.

The government has pointed to numerous actions it has taken that have not benefited Qantas as proof it has not played favourites.

Labor’s national president Wayne Swan advocated for a review of the decision to clear the air, but that was not done.