Originally Posted by
GUWonder
The petty nationalists of one sort elsewhere have said there is a pro-ME bias, perhaps a bias purchased by moneyed interests. I don't buy that as a great explanation but the Vizier's daughter could tell one mean take in or out of drag.
Ah OK, got it. I guess I will just stick with the published data. Speaking of which, a few more numbers from the Ethiad strategy and what they are supposedly doing with their so-called "Equity alliance" which were released this evening from Euromonitor and Reuters UK who are continuing to publish on the record:
Etihad, which has driven restructuring and job cuts at Air Berlin and Air Serbia, has via the equity stakes and code shares diverted more passengers from its partners' planes to its Abu Dhabi hub while avoiding the costs that being a member of a traditional alliance entails.
"From the airlines they have acquired, we can see a regional spread across Europe and Asia-Pacific, giving them access to very populous countries, which brings more passenger flows and, ultimately, more sales to their operations," Euromonitor analyst Nadeja Popova told Reuters.
In 2013, Etihad's code shares with other airlines and its equity partners brought 1.8 million passengers onto Etihad flights, helping total passenger numbers rise 16 percent to almost 12 million. Emirates carried 39 million passengers in its 2012/13 fiscal year, also a 16 percent increase.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/0...A1507R20140206