DirtyDan

I find this an interesting view on the state of the American business environment; do you remember America that bastion of free-market capitalism? As soon as the free-market is pressured from the evil foreigners, the ruthless capitalist runs to his government for protection instead of looking internally at why his/her business is losing market share....

edgewood49

I am not quite sure of your example here. What is at issue is the state supported foreign flag carriers versus free market of the US. THATS where the rub comes in do you really think that without the Sovereign support they could be where they are today? I think not.

Amelorn

Why not use large wide-bodies? The gulf carriers seem to fill them and have built a model that emphasises capacity over frequency.

tom_MN

Emirates Dubai>>Houston nonstop often flies right over Minneapolis.

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/U...505Z/OMDB/KIAH

I wish it would stop a couple days a week....

Indelaware

I don't know about re-testing, but I'd suspect that there is constant (re)training required. Discriminating against people who are older or of size and capable would certainly be problematic labor policy.

While there may be some rotten applies who are simply board, I'd wager that a large percentage of sour FAs would be far less sour if there employer would pay them a fair salary, if they had reasonable access to management to discuss and suggest policies, and if American labor unions hadn't become so weak.

Certainly many markets in the US can't support wide-bodies with any frequency, but some certainly could if the frequencies were decreased. And there are other markets which are served with frequent regional jets but could be served more efficiently with less frequent mainline narrow bodies.

Whenever I raise the size vs frequency comment, U.S. frequent fliers seem to come down on the side of frequency as the only acceptable alternative to frequency with wide-bodies. IMO, too many of my fellow travelers seem so busy (they call this working hard, I call it working poorly) that they won't/can't spend an extra day or even a few extra hours at a given origin or at a connecting point. The emphasis is always on the freedom-to-go rather than on freedom-to-not rush.

One problem in the US is a complete disdain for market place regulation. The result is very frequent departures, (overly) crowded skies and ramps, and environmental pollution.

Schweden

How are US airlines under any significant threat from Gulf airlines? The most important markets of the US to Europe and East Asia can't be touched by Gulf carriers. No one who values their time will fly EWR-AUH-HKG instead of EWR-HKG as it will add at least 5 hours of traveling time. Gulf carriers are only better for traveling to South Asia or East Africa from the US - routes that US carriers don't even fly. For example, only Delta flies to BKK and that's with a stop at NRT.

Gulf carriers are more of a threat to EU airlines. A lot of people may rather choose to take HAM-DXB-BKK than HAM-FRA-BKK.

WindowSeat123

No.

As already stated, EK is not subsidized by their government. And many major European carriers was (or still is) state-backed, yet we don't raise much criticism against them either. So this whole notion of unfair competition does not really hold water, in my opinion. And (again, stated already by the other posters), US carriers have been bailed out by the Feds in the aftermath of 9/11 using taxpayer dollars, so let's not pretend the US carriers are really as independent and free of government dependency as they claim.

TravelStar

Here's my take on the advantages of the Arab-Based Airlines:

- While most of their management, pilots and a large portion of their flight attendants are British and American, they have what many would consider a major unfair advantage. That is, NO INCOME TAX. While their pay rates compare, their effective compensation is much higher than competitors in the UK and the US.

- The Arab Hubs (Dubai, Abu Dhabai, Doha) operate 24 Hours A Day. Compared to any other Western Hub which typically has to cut most flight traffic by midnight for almost all flights. This is a major advantage if you're looking to be a major hub. This is the primary reason Dubai has recently surpassed LHR in traffic, for example.

Annalisa12

Stories by who? I know one thing if that story is true and I m sacked and put on the first plane out of a Middle Eastern country, with all my funds frozen I would never be going back there.

chinatraderjmr

The region has not been accused of unfair labour practices...........your speaking of ONE country, Qatar. As far as the airlines are concerned, I can't speak of the other two but EK treats its employees very well..........they have a huge group of Western Expats in all sorts of jobs from the President down to cust svc reps. Dubai has made great strides in improving the living conditions for the average third world worker (no manual labour in the summer during peak heat hours, guaranteed pay (as opposed to getting ripped off by employers, etc) No, its no paradise for workers compared to the West but if you live in Bangladesh and have a choice of NO work at all or manual labour for $2 a day, then whats wrong with these countries paying $10 a day to the same people? nothing.

IMHO Western companies need to get their houses in order before telling Gulf carriers how to behave

lhrsfo

The US market is quite different from the market that the likes of Emirates and Etihad address. The US market is dominated by Frequent Flyer programs, and upgrades. Elsewhere, frequent flyer programs are relatively insignificant, upgrades simply do not happen and the products are differentiated so that business travellers fly in Business (or, at least, Premium Economy). So Emirates exploit that opportunity. Their premium cabins are nicer but they pack them in more aggressively at the back.

For UA to squeal about them is ridiculous. They don't benefit from a protected home market as UA does (if you want to fly to large parts of the USA, your only option is to fly on a US airline as foreign airlines are not allowed to fly there - whereas the Gulf carriers don't have that advantage to any extent in their home markets). UA hardly flies at all to countries where the majority of the Gulf carriers' US passengers want to fly. There's huge traffic between the US and, for example, India, the Gulf, East and South Africa, Thailand etc. but the US carriers either don't go there or have extremely limited capacity.

It's an unfortunate trait of American businesses to hide behind protectionism whenever there's a whiff of overseas competition.

baccarat0809

The biggest problem with all us carriers is a function of US society.

Customers are treated as THE PROBLEM, not as the answer.

Society needs to change and I don't think it will.

edgewood49

Try this one on for size


"Emirates is an airline based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The airline is a subsidiary of The Emirates Group, which is wholly owned by the government of Dubai's Investment Corporation of Dubai. Wikipedia"

Fact

rankourabu

So what? There are plenty of govt owned airlines that keep losing money, and have to be kept afloat with govt money.

Last I checked, the Gulf Airlines make plenty of profit for their owners.

As for labour practices, they can only strive to be as good to their employees as the high paying US regional carriers are

edgewood49

I was responding to Windowseat's misstatement regarding ownership.

As far as US versus foreign flag's US are 100% profit first comfort second and it's only when the market demands comfort and service do they respond. Next I am flying EK, SA and AF in that order for three weeks and looking forward to it. I could have flown DL coupled with UA but given I am sitting there for a long time I chose comfort.