ia1126 and CaptSnails,
From conception in 1993 untill 2000 Qatar Airways was a private entity, the government held no equity in the airlines and QR wasn't even the official carrier of Qatar. The honour went to Gulf Air instead.
The airline is owned by a group of private investors encompasing business men, Al-Thani's, and and insurance firm. In 2000 a 50% stake in the airline was sold to the government and QR was officially cristened the official flag carrier of Qatar. QR also had access to loan guarantees from the government.
QR still achieved remarkable mile-stones before government involvement especially after the 1997 restructuring.
Listen fellas. any airline can proclaim to be the worlds fastest expanding airline if its government ploughs huge tracts of cash into it.
As I said above QR does recieve subsidies in the form of loan gurantees and preferential treatment. QR claim to be one of the world fastest growing airlines (e.g. 65% increase in passenger figures in 1Q 2002 over 1Q 2001 !!!) but they admit that they are loss making and say that profitability will take around 5 years to achieve. Up to then it is the shareholders responsability to cover the losses.
completely transparent management and accounting practices
QF and BA need to have transparent accounting and management because they are not private companies. For example BMI doesn't release financial details to the public because they are a private entity and so don't have an obligation. QR is in the same position, QR plan to have an IPO by the end of the decade if they develop by the business plan and then they will release all financial records from inception upto the date of the IPO and continue to release details to the public after that. Now neither you are me have a right to access these records since they are for the shareholders to see.
Why is it every time a QR aircraft lands in Doha there are 6 lexus waiting on the ramp to pick up the Qataris on board? Are you a nation of VIP's?
First of all what you saw were BMW 7 series vehicles. The reason you see so many of these BMW's is because QR provide them for all of their First Class passengers regardless of race, religion, wealth or social status. VIP's and airport officials use the white BMW's and the QR F pax use the ones in the QR livery with the oryx logo.
The white BMW's are available for all Al-Thani's, government officials, foreign VIP's, celebrities, important guests, foreign diplomats, local prominent figures like religious leaders etc.... Also Airport officials like the director of the airport use these BMW's to commute within the airport grounds or to inspect incoming aircraft or ground facilities.
I seem to recall that BA had to lean on Mr Blair after 11 Sept. UK Government funding to help dampen out the effect of the big jump in insurance costs is, a classic example of this. I am sure BA's books are in a better state today because of that government funding!
Mister Geezer is right, in most parts of the world including Europe and the US many airlines had to rely on their governments for aid including loan guarantees which is the form of subsidies QR gets. This is because governments realise the airlines are an integral part of the engine that drives their economies. So if a major airline fails you will see less foreign business men investing, less tourists spending, less infrastructure to import/export goods, less awareness of a country internationalyy and worst of all lost jobs.
Gulf Air didn't employ many Qataris even pre-Qatar Airways. The majority of Gulf locals in GF were from Bahrain even though Qatar, Abu Dhabi, Bahrain and Oman have an equal share in the airline. Gulf Air didn't contribute it's fare share to the economy, GF didn't do much to market Qatar as a tourist destination, didn't do much to market Qatar as a whole.
Gulf Air also reduced a lot of their flights out of DOH and that didn't offer a lot of choice for Qatari's to travel. The airport facilities were severely under-utilised which would mean a higher per unit cost.
The lack of flights to main business centres even means foreign business will overlook Qatar to set up a regional base. There was a case of a multi-national seeking to open a regional base and they had two competitive offers from Qatar and another country in the Gulf. The Qatar option was the best in-terms of lower costs but the decision was finally taken to go to the other Gulf country because the executives didn't want to have to take a connection in BAH everytime they commute.
For reasons of Qatar's Brand Identity, employement of local population and promotion to foreign tourists and bussineses Qatar took the decision to aquire a stake in QR and aid them untill they can get back on their feet.
This doesn't only happen in "backward countries with too much oil money to blow" it happens all over the world. You can look at Air France in the early 90's for example.
Also to suggest the QR doesn't have a commercial aim is untrue. If the shareholders just want QR as an avenue to blow money in without any commercial goals why did they employ proffesionals to run the airline. Why didn't they incorporate the company into a ministry or why didn't they have government officials run the airline like they have with Qatar's other state-owned business?
If Qatar Airways has no commercial sense then they wouldn't need to have an excellent on-board product, strict training regimen for front-line staff to offer the best service, excellent on-board catering etc... too attract as many passengers as possible.
Look at other state-owned airlines who have poor inflight product, deteriorating quality and sub-standard front-line facilities such as lounges like Saudi Arabian Airlines. They don't need to have a good overall product with commercial style management because they don't need to attract any customers since even if they have a fleet of 1000 B747-400's flying with no passengers the government will still cover their losses.