Qantas Airways big winner from free trade deal with China Eastern link: Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce. Photo: Quinn Rooney Qantas Airways will deepen its partnership with Shanghai-based airline China Eastern by seeking regulatory approvals to co-ordinate scheduling and pricing in the fast-growing Chinese market. That will make the alliance similar to the one Qantas has with Emirates on flights to Europe and with American Airlines on flights to the United States. "For us it is a good advancement of where we have been in the China market," Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce told Fairfax Media of the five-year agreement signed on Monday with China Eastern chairman Liu Saoyong at Parliament House, in a ceremony attended by Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Chinese President Xi Jinping. It is a good market and it has good growth. It will be a win for our customers and, by making it easier for Chinese travellers to visit Australia, a win for trade and tourism. Qantas already has a codeshare arrangement with the Chinese carrier, but under a new agreement signed on Monday they will look to co-ordinate their services on the Sydney-Shanghai route and move Qantas flights to Terminal 1 at Shanghai to allow for better connection times and lounge access. China Eastern also flies from Melbourne to Shanghai and the deal envisages a point when one of the carriers could add the Brisbane-Shanghai or Perth-Shanghai routes. At present, Qantas and China Eastern flights depart Sydney for Shanghai within about 20 minutes of each other. If the Australian and Chinese competition regulators approve the deeper relationship as expected by the middle of next year, the timings could be spread apart to offer more choice for customers. Under its deal with Emirates, Qantas has aligned pricing on flights between Australia and Europe. However, Mr Joyce said in this case, pricing was likely to be "co-ordinated" rather than aligned due to the product difference. "We know our services get a premium on [Chinese] routes," he said. We think that should be sustainable going forward. Mr Joyce said there were no current plans for Qantas, which also has a codeshare relationship with Guangzhou-based China Southern, to boost its services to China beyond its Sydney-Shanghai flight. But he said that could change in the future if Qantas's international business returned to profitability and it exercised its options and purchase rights over Boeing 787-9 aircraft. "I think everything is possible with this agreement," he said. We do believe once we go through this transformation and turn Qantas International around we will have growth opportunities for Qantas International with the 787s. I think there are lots of opportunities as China continues to grow the way it is growing. Qantas has also flagged plans to separate its international business into a new holding company that will allow it to sell up to 49 per cent of the division to a foreign buyer. But Mr Joyce said it was too early to say whether China Eastern could be interested in buying that stake. "You never rule anybody in or anybody out," he said. We are not engaging at the moment anywhere. Separately, China Southern on Monday extended its marketing agreement with Tourism Australia, with the pair committing a further $4.2 million for 2015. There were 789,300 visitors from China in the 12 months to September 30, an annual increase of 10.5 per cent. Figures recently released by Tourism Australia suggest that annual spending by Chinese visitors to Australia could rise to $13 billion annually by 2020.