South African Airways’ (SAA) code-sharing arrangement with Qantas, an Australian airline, is poised to come to an end, it emerged on Friday.

This means Qantas passengers will no longer be able to buy a seat on the SAA and vice versa under a different flight number or code like it has been the case between the two carriers since 2000.

“Although we no longer operate flights ourselves to Sydney, we will maintain our presence in the country through our own operations to Perth and all of our established partnerships,” Kendy Phohleli, SAA acting commercial GM, told Sapa.

On Friday it emerged that there could be job cuts at Qantas of up to 3000 workers as it is expected to report an interim loss of about $300 million. An announcement could be made as early as next week.