Originally Posted by
moondog
They managed to get Boston (along with JFK, of course) up and running before the US carriers started crying foul about Russia overflights. In this sense, but now it's a valuable asset (i.e a de facto extra NY flight).
AC's hands are tied wrt Russia overflights in the same way as AA/DL/UA. Delta does operate DTW-PVG (going daily soon, actually) without using Russian airspace, but they made rumblings about hoping to squat on those slots because opex is high.
AC hasn't made nearly as much noise about the Russia issue or unfair competition in general as the US3, but I'm guessing this is because it doesn't have to (i.e works in lockstep with the Canadian government).
My further assumption/guess is that, to the extent CX is trying to secure more Canada slots, those negotiations are happening at high levels from outside of public view. This would help explain why the CX Americas guy's statement was nothing but (precisely worded) hot air.
Yes AC knows the Canadian government has the carrier's back. Remember a number of years ago during the Harper government when Emirates and Etihad wanted to increase service to Canada and were denied? There was a spat with the UAE and Canada was booted out of the Emirati defense facilities it was using to supply the mission in Afghanistan.
It's understandable that CX would want more slots and I would welcome the competition, but it's likely both Ottawa and AC are worried about the effect that extra capacity would have on the sustainability of AC's Far East routes, particularly the services to Singapore and Bangkok. Canadian authorities value direct links and Cathay could siphon off a lot of onward traffic by routing it through their HKG hub. I would be curious what percentage of AC passengers to those two destinations are connecting elsewhere in SE Asia, almost certainly to destinations to which CX already flies from HKG.