US Airlines Ramp Up Effort to Stifle Middle East Carriers – What Do They Know?

[Panich52]

US Airlines Ramp Up Effort to Stifle Middle East Carriers – What Do They Know?

It looks like American, Delta, and United are getting a little nervous about those fast-growing carriers in the Middle East. It’s bad enough that the three have now banded together to push on the US government to renegotiate open skies treaties with those countries. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/07/business/us-airlines-challenge-open-skies-agreements.html?_r=0 From what’s known publicly, this seems like a bad idea. So either they’re dumb, or they know more than we do.

The US has been the world’s biggest advocate of open skies treaties for two decades. It has signed more than 100 of them since 1992. What does that mean? An open skies agreement means that airlines of one country have the right to fly to the other country without restriction* and vice versa. I put an asterisk there because there are always non-governmental restrictions that get in the way, like slot scarcity at JFK or something like that.

But the point is that you lift the shackles of government regulation off the air traffic between two countries and let airlines compete on an equal footing. EQUAL is the word that American, Delta, and United are currently fighting about.

Open skies agreements have been very successful in growing traffic. Think about the silly restrictions that only allowed a limited number of flights on two US carriers and two British carriers between Heathrow and the US before the current open skies agreement with the European Union was signed.

Or, more importantly for this post, think about how traffic has exploded between the US and both Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. Of course, most of that growth has come from carriers based in those countries and not from the US. But it has certainly added a ton of capacity and travelers have benefited greatly.

More:
http://crankyflier.com/2015/02/17/us-airlines-ramp-up-effort-to-stifle-middle-east-carriers-what-do-they-know/

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[C_U_L8R]

1. Emirates is kicking ass

and these guys just can't keep up, customer satisfaction wise.