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The heads of Delta, American and United have asked for a meeting with newly confirmed secretary of state Rex Tillerson to discuss their Open Skies dispute with Gulf airlines Emirates, Etihad and Qatar.
In a letter Wednesday, American’s Doug Parker, Delta’s Ed Bastian and United’s Oscar Munoz restated their allegation that the Gulf carriers have accepted more than $50 billion in illegal state subsidies from their home countries Qatar and United Arab Emirates since 2004.
“The subsidies allow the Gulf carriers to operate without concern for turning a profit, unlike U.S. airlines, and therefore focus entirely on stripping market share and driving out competition,” the executives wrote. “The subsidy-enabled capacity dumping by the Gulf carriers has nearly eliminated U.S. carrier service to the Middle East and India.”
The Gulf carriers deny that they have received such subsidies. And while the Big 3 U.S. airlines have long asked for a block on route expansion into the U.S. for the Gulf carriers, that position is far from unanimous among U.S. airlines. JetBlue, Hawaiian and the cargo carriers FedEx and Atlas Air Worldwide have joined together in opposition to the Big 3.
Meanwhile, the Partnership for Fair & Open Skies, which is comprised of the Big 3 as well as seven airline unions, looked askance at a Bloomberg report that Etihad CEO James Hogan had said the Abu Dhabi-based carrier won’t add more routes to the U.S.
“Hogan appears to think that the United States should be willing to accept the status quo and just move on. He’s wrong,” the partnership’s chief spokeswoman, Jill Zuckman, said in prepared remarks. “The United States should not tolerate this rule-breaking, bad behavior by the UAE and Qatar that hurts U.S. airlines and costs American jobs.”
Sourse: travelweekly.com
