PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Middle East majors to dominate international travel?
Old 1st May 2020, 21:10
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Emma Royds
 
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We will need to wait for the dust to settle and see which airlines survive and which sadly don't and what opportunities may exist. If there is insufficient demand for existing capacity out of their home bases in the Gulf and if traffic rights were secured elsewhere, then it could be a savvy move to deploy surplus capacity to new markets, if demand exists.

What is more complex, is trying to establish what has happened behind the scenes after a number of US legacy airlines lobbied the White House over perceived unfair competition against Gulf airlines. Discussions between Qatar/UAE and the US nearly two years ago, resulted in mixed messages from the US with one of Trump's trade advisers, who is a staunch nationalist and sided with the US airlines, publically contradicting the more toned down State Department version of what was agreed. Cue numerous revised and at times confusing press releases, with the outside world being left to read in between the lines and guess what was agreed.

If the US airlines were complaining during good times, then I can't imagine they will roll over and happily see any of the ME3 look at expanding across the North Atlantic from Europe.
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