Cathay Pacific and Singapore Airlines cautiously welcome new hubs as Qatar & Turkish enter the fray

The legacy airline pivot towards the world's new network carriers is taking quiet but potentially significant strides in Asia: Cathay Pacific is to partner with oneworld Qatar Airways; Singapore Airlines expands its partnership with fellow Star Alliance member Turkish Airlines.

Cathay and SIA, Asia's two benchmark carriers, have generally been resolutely independent, an approach that worked in their heyday but now shows limits as competition mounts. The driving strategy is succinctly described by SIA in a statement about growing its partnership with Turkish: "We can jointly do more together than we could each do on our own" - the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

Those are powerful words, perhaps unimaginable a few years ago for SIA. But to be clear, these fall far short - at least for now - of the landmark agreements between Qantas and Emirates, or Etihad and Air France. The partnerships are young and any growth will take time to build, from beyond destination access to codeshare rates that determine how much traction these alliances will have. Etihad-Air France at 18 months old is still being defined, so these first steps from Cathay and SIA are important, even if the path ahead is long.