Qantas Airways Ltd., Australia’s biggest carrier, said bookings have risen since July 1 as domestic and Asian corporate travel rebounds from the global recession.

“It’s been very good for us,” Chief Executive Officer Alan Joyce said in an interview with Bloomberg Television Monday. “There is still some weakness in the US and UK, but the Asian operations, the domestic operations and the Australian market are seeing a good recovery.”

Qantas expects “materially stronger” earnings in the December half as it sells more profitable seats and benefits from an efficiency drive that reduced costs by A$533 million ($481 million) in the past 12 months, the first year of a three- year plan. The Sydney-based company controls about 90 percent of the domestic market for corporate and government travel.

“We continue to be encouraged by the apparent momentum associated with premium travel recovery,” Cameron McDonald, a Melbourne-based analyst at Deutsche Bank AG, said in a note to clients Monday.

Jetstar Growth

Joyce, 44, said he expects new domestic and international routes to support leisure travel in his budget unit Jetstar, limiting the impact of rising domestic capacity.

Jetstar’s profit dropped 84 percent to A$10 million in the second half ending June 30. The Qantas-owned brands, Virgin Blue Holding Ltd. and Tiger Airways Holdings Ltd. all put more seats into Australian skies in the past year, helping push discount airfares to record lows.

“We are still planning to grow Jetstar by double digits this year,” Joyce said.

Meanwhile, a an appeals court earlier ruled ruled that Qantas Airways Ltd., Australia’s biggest airline, and six other carriers, must defend against claims they participated in a global conspiracy to fix rates for international air cargo shipments.

The Federal Court of Australia overturned a lower court decision dismissing a group lawsuit in a judgment issued in Melbourne and broadcast into federal court in Sydney.

Qantas conspired with other airlines to fix cargo rates from January 2000 to January 2007, Auskay International Manufacturing & Trade Ltd., a manufacturer of central vacuum systems, claimed in the 2007 lawsuit. Qantas was the largest hauler of air cargo between Australia and U.S. in the period.

“After several years, we can move forward,” Brooke Dellavedova, a lawyer at Maurice Blackburn who represents Auskay, said in a phone interview from Melbourne. “We’re very happy with the decision.”