always been one of the most vocal Airlines, opposing State subsidies and promoting open skies.
That sounds like Stockholm Syndrome. This is the kind of thing stexup was ranting about.
By a massive stroke of good fortune, this lot enjoy a geographical position which is made for hub and spoke operations. The only serious competitors are QR and the bunch who wont let anyone discuss them. It's very easy to claim
Open Skies For All when they own the hub and the concept suits them down to the ground and they know most of these airlines won't operate a flight to/from at the drop of a hat or if they do then the cost advantage and economy of scale will negate the impact.
As for state subsidies they are happy to decry this too since they only had the one little subsidy themselves (for 100% of their start-up capital). Since then they have made money off the back of low wages (slave labour if you like) for their army of blue collar airport workers as well as favoured treatment at their home airport but you can rest assured that if they had needed more capital, they would have been given it.
Better deals on Boeings in return for COTW cooperation? Who would ever know? But nothing is on a level playing field so any self-flagellating about fair play by them is to be laughingly taken with a large dose of salt.
Instead of pulling themselves about not receiving regular capital injections (apart from that teensy little one at the start) when other airlines do, they should take a look out how other airlines around the world (are forced to) treat their staff. Imagine a US airline paying their army of baggage handlers a few dollars a day. No unions, no overtime, no holiday loading, etc.
Anything they say in the POV has foundations in BS.