Originally Posted by
Souvlaki
I'm not talking 5th freedom. I'm talking freedom period. As in MAN-HKG straight up if that's what they want to do.
Freedom. Free market. Open competition. All terms that confuse the airline world, apparently.
No - not really. Any airline registered in Europe can do that. No one has. Why do you think that is the case?
And you think that EK or UA would be interested to come in and do this? What, on its own with no hub support, based on that massive HKG-MAN market?
By the way, any Hong Kong based airline CAN do this too. Several have tried to LGW - and failed because of a lack of market.
I'm not saying there are no restrictions in the airline market - most are put in place by governments and unions - especailly in the US. No foreign airline is allowed to hold more than 25% of a US airline. And remember the furore when Virgin America tried to start up? But strangely in Europe there are now far fewer restrictions than in most countries. But it is not just about government aviation policy. It's about whether an airline, any airline, can make a business case for a particular operation.