Originally Posted by
FD1971
It is not a problem for me, why should it be. I pointed it out since my first post that every state-owned airlines is on steriods...
Does it really surprise you that a Government-owned company runs into trouble 125 years after Sherman in the US, 30 years after Thatcher, 20 years after the privatisation of Deutsche Telekom in Germany and, wait for the kicker, in France at all
Different times, different opinions, although the matter is still the same.
Again, Tears for Fears Mad World (and the Cranberries one was unexpected, but appreciated nevertheless. ^^)
This combined with the comment about Clark in 2144:
Like I posted before, the GDR simply did not allow unemployment, they simply said it does not exist and everybody agreed and said: Amen, Erich
It is the same here, Clark says No and expects us to say Yes and Amen.
is indicative that you view the issue of EK and ME3 operations as much more of an political-economic ideological issue rather than a simple evaluation of the evidence at hand - and ideologically you seem to find the idea that government-owned companies operating in the "free market" on their own rather offensive, your conscious statements that you "only care about best-practices in management" in previous posts notwithstanding.
It is not impossible for fully state-owned enterprises to be competitive, and profitably sustainable, neither is it morally wrong, unless you are on an economic crusade for the rather libertarian principle of private enterprise to the exclusion of all else. After all here is
one fully state-owned enterprise that is sustainably profitable in a
notoriously difficult industry (transport infrastructure). Ideologically of course, the demands for it re-privatisation have won, so back into the private sector it goes.
I think that bias is preventing you from admitting, objectively, that it is plausible that EK could make money without being secretly funded - and the mental gymnastics and confluence of conspiracy required (and the scale: thousands of people would have to be in on it, for decades, unlike the sports analogies you bring up to try and equate to EKs position which only need a few) are stunning, more stunning than the disbelief that one airline out of dozens has been able to make it - not unique of course, you do mention Southwest, I mentioned Ryanair which didn't need the public airport money to be profitable, as well as say, CX, SQ or AirAsia in the early days.
That ideological issue also makes it seem that innocent-until-proven-guilty is thrown out of the window too, which is unfortunate. There is no smoking gun, all the "evidence" presented against EK is circumstantial (and debunkable), that relies on inferences that are only possible with double standards and political/ideological biases.