American Airlines’ CEO has said he hopes Qatar Airways doesn’t carry out its threat to leave the airline alliance oneworld, in spite of the ongoing row over subsidies between US and Gulf carriers.
Qatar Airways CEO Akbar Al Baker, on two occasions in the past month, has threatened to quit the oneworld airline alliance which it joined in 2013.
Complaining about it business being inhibited by restricted terminal access at New York’s John F. Kennedy airport, Al Baker said at the recent Paris Air Show, “We are only committed to oneworld provided the spirit in which we joined oneworld exists. If we are being cornered by an airline that invited us to be part of the alliance and is now acting against our interests … blocking inventory and blocking us gates at JFK, of course we have no purpose to be in an alliance. If we find that we cannot have a settlement to this very contentious issue, yes we will exit from oneworld.”
American Airlines’ CEO Doug Parker, however, says the oneworld alliance should be treated separately to the going spat. He told Bloomberg that American Airlines “is really happy with Oneworld and the partnerships that are there, and hopes those relationships continue to exist,” he said.
“That’s a marketing relationship that we view as separate from public policy,” he added.
Speaking about the subsidies row, Parker said it has now reached an impasse that will now require government intervention to find a resolution.
“We’ve agreed to disagree and I think this now belongs with governments, not CEOs. We can compete with airlines; we can’t compete with countries,” Parker said at a media briefing at the first anniversary of American Airlines’ route from Dallas/Fort Worth-Hong Kong.
American, along with United and Delta, claim the three Gulf airlines have received a total of $42 billion of unfair subsidies from their respective governments and they claim this represents a violation of Open Skies policies intended to regulate competition in the global aviation industry.
In response, Gulf airlines have said US airlines received subsidies following the September 11 terrorist attacks, and were allowed to write-off the debt under the US Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganisations.
In response, Parker said, “You just need to ask the creditors of US airlines that filed bankruptcies or the employees who took pay cuts as to whether or not the governments subsidised those airlines, or whether they did. If that’s the real argument they have, that ‘You’re subsidised also,’ we disagree, but let’s have that conversation.”
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