National Airlines has come out in support of open skies: http://www.regulations.gov/#!documen...2015-0082-0059

National operates regular charters between Afghanistan and Dubai. Some EK flights carry the N8 code; this actually allows EK to carry USPS mail. National's business model wouldn't work if something changed with the open skies agreement. (Much like Fedex's west asia and africa operations through their Dubai hub)

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avcritic - AFAIK no consultations have been requested on the Open Skies agreement. The time hasn't really started ticking yet.

The current "60 days to respond" basically comes from the US3. I'm sure Hogan Lovells would have advised EK that it's of course not legally binding.

To add on to eternaltransit's post: If EK is legitimate and can prove themselves to be legitimate, they might also want to prevent QR and EY from piggybacking - therefore, they wouldn't want to shut down the issue too quickly. They'd rather let the issue press on for a while, bring EY and QR (their competitors) into the dogfight, then get themselves out. Of course, these are all state-owned airlines, and I don't know what impact Gulf politics might have in this - perhaps it is even politically difficult for EK to say anything at this point.

Edit: The IATA AGM this year will be on 7-9 June 2015 in Miami. Should be a fun event, given this backdrop.