Can't say I'm surprised. The UAE can't afford to do all what it was doing before for all of its aviation industry, so this is just another public play up on the advice of its lobbyists in DC. And given the US bans -- we probably haven't seen them all yet -- and all the uncertainty being unleashed by the new US Admin, demand for travel on the GCC3's route network won't be all that it otherwise would be. Add in that the UAE is in major kiss-up mode (and has always preferred the current US party in charge to its primary opposition), and, voila, we get this kind of stuff too.
Economic realities and political realities combine to make the international air travel world what it is. Hogan pretty much indicated that this announcement is not driven by merely apolitical calculations.
Last edited by GUWonder; Feb 3, 2017 at 1:43 am