Originally Posted by gipilot
The EU is waging a war against the middle Eastern carriers especially EK.
The "war" is not unique to the EU, there is justifiable concerns over who is actually controlling some of these so called European airlines. An airline that cannot be named on here is linked to a number of these issues.
EK is not the flag carrier of the UAE, the is another airline that cannot be named on here.
Regionally similar concerns have been made in Singapore, Vietnam, Indonesia, India, Thailand, Philippines, Japan, Korea, and even here in Hong Kong with foreign owned airlines wanting to setup airlines effectively controlled from overseas to make use of air service agreements which they would not have access to normally.
Originally Posted by gipilot
Germany is ROCK solid in not giving them more slots in Germany.
This is not really true, they have unlimited slots and capacity into Germany, they could fly to FRA every 30 minutes with an A380 under the current air service agreement. The only restriction is that they can only fly to 4 airports, it is up to EK to nominate which 4 airports they want to fly to.
EK has a desire to add Berlin, Germany is saying they are welcome to Berlin, EK will just have to stop flying to either Frankfurt, Munich, Duesseldorf and Hamburg.
Originally Posted by gipilot
cancelling 70 airplanes is no joke, it's a serious warning sign to the EU that if they don't open up, there can't be any serious expansion for EK and that they'll dent Airbus' pride.
The first A350 was not to be delivered to EK until around 2019 (2019-2023), the additional slots will probably result in a 20-40% increase on the resale of those slots now that launch discounts are over.
Airbus is already fielding request for these slots, some of which may end up just a short drive/fight from DXB.
Originally Posted by Sheep Guts
EADS (Airbuses mother company)
EADS no longer exists, it is now the Airbus Group, with three main divisions Airbus, Airbus Defence and Space, and Airbus Helicopters.