If one was in Europe contemplating a ski holiday in North America via ANY Middle Eastern carrier, it would not be a "seven hour coach ride after a ten hour flight". The flights would first need to go through Dubai/Abu Dhabi/Qatar (about 7-8 hours), and then (using EK as example) transfer to a 14-15 hour flight to Seattle. Clear US Customs. Then the 2 hour ride to the border. Clear Canadian Customs. Then the 2 hour ride to Whistler. All assuming good traffic and weather, of course. Hope that's worth saving "a couple hundred". What's a lift ticket at Whistler these days, anyway? Costs aside, I'm not really sure how Seattle via the ME is "easier" than YVR, coming from Europe?
No one considers it an "unreasonable" business practice to funnel pax through their hub to another destination. It's a more fundamental question of how does a developed western nation with all of the costs associated, compete with a developing nation unhindered by similar costs? The answer is, they can't...any more than Nike can make shoes cheaper in Oregon than they can in China. So they (AC, or other legacy carriers) do what they can to protect themselves with regulation. Eventually it will collapse, no doubt, and the consumers will get their cheaper seats, and the workers will get their lower wages. And a few people (like the very highest management in EK) will get extraordinarily wealthy, and everyone else will make a pittance.
It's the Walmartization of the airline industry. No one cares, until it kills THEIR livelihood.
If you're going to compare apples to apples, at least all of the legacy carriers I can think of flying internationally also have a strong domestic presence in their home country. Emirates is a parasite, existing SOLELY to siphon traffic from everyone else's markets.
I cannot confirm this, but I personally believe Qatar was given rights over the UAE because firstly Qatar didn't have a piece of the pie yet, and second, Canada didn't like the way the UAE was trying to hold Canada hostage with the military base issue.
Bingo. And this was from one of our "allies" in the region.