Originally Posted by
MarJon
From my recollection.... 90% Yes or 10% heard it directly from someone who was there....
Read the discussion in the thread I linked to (
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...solidated.html). This --- some form of the claim that PHL-TLV was the most profitable routes in US's system --- was conventional wisdom on FlyerTalk and elsewhere, including amongst some very knowledgable posters (including, if I remember correctly, JonNYC). However, that conventional wisdom turned out to be completely wrong, as Doug Parker detailed (see, eg, post
448 in that thread and the discussion thereafter) and some of the posters with the strongest track records here (including
YTravelF and
JonNYC) confirmed.
The claim that AA cutting PHL-TLV was somehow tied to QR (the way this discussion resurfaced in this thread), makes no sense whatsoever. To make that claim, you need to make two completely unfounded assumptions:
- QR cares if AA flies PHL-TLV.
- QR has any ability to prevent AA from flying to TLV.
On 1, DOH and TLV are, as far as I know, completely disjoint markets. I would guess that there is absolutely no overlap; someone wanting to go to or through DOH does not have TLV as an option or alternative, and vice versa. So I don't see how QR has any economic incentive to care one way or the other about AA serving TLV. So the only reason I can see that QR would have to want AA not to serve TLV is open anti-Semitism. I have my issues with QR the airline and Qatar the country to be sure (though I don't claim to be at all knowledgable about either), but I don't see any reason to believe that the corporation would act that way.
On 2, QR has no ownership stake in AA (the topic of this thread) and no joint venture with AA. They're just an arms-length partner through oneworld, not even any longer a codeshare partner. And even if QR did buy 10% or the maximum 25% of AA, they would be legally prohibited from having any control over AA decision-making under US law.