Originally Posted by
yyzgigi
While in general competition is a good thing and may give you some more options out of Canada to Africa and Asia, flooding the market with capacity will ultimately destroy competition and may reduce options to Europe. If EK undercuts KLM/LH (and others) on Africa flights, they may decide to pull out of the Vancouver market.
While one can debate whether or not EK is subsidized by the government, they clearly have access to a cheap labor pool and in an environment that lacks any employee protections that western carriers cannot compete with.
Using that unfair advantage would ultimately skim all the cream from AC and drive them out of business.
Actually, KL has always undercut the *A team for yonks... to anywhere via their hub in AMS. The published fares are the same.. but to get the best ubpublished discounted deals, you need to check with a TA.
So how is this different? Each airline tries to undercut another to get passengers. Having EK come into Canada is not going to drive away competition from the likes of KL, LH , or BA. In fact I am sure they welcome it.
It is only AC that is not feeling 'well' in this situation. EK doesn't have a 'cheap' labour pool. In fact, their FAs pay are more generous than what AC can offer for someone on similar seniority. Its just that EK staff pay NO tax whatsoever that perhaps drives their employees to offer superior service on their flights. AC is actually the one that is responsible in keeping our airfares articificially inflatted because there is no competition!
After having my dinner casserole thrown at me by an AC old bat FA recently, I'd say, let the competition come.