And this is exactly what they are trying to do already. Etihad already used the good old European arguments last week at the CAPA Meeting, arguing that Ch.11 is already a massive Government subsidy. @:-)

Qatar is smarter, they just buy old and outdated fighter aircraft from France in order to get traffic rights. On the other side of the border, we do not sell fighter aircraft so much, we sell Leos from Rheinmetall. ;););)

And most of the people are just fans supporting their favorite club without critical thinking. And as long as Chelsea wins the Champions League, because it is Roman’s hobby, as long as EK subsidies all the backpackers flying around the world in a good Y class instead of two connections in obscure places like twenty years ago, they can actually look in the mirror and continue to be a little bit naïve (no pun intended…)


Absolutely not, Turkish is a privately owned airline subject to the rules of the free market. ;)

Let’s just hope that the Turkish Government will not play Dubai Government in the future, refusing to pay for the all the debt Dubai World, EK etc. accumulated. Again, someone has to pay for it in the end... @:-)

If you do not want to, like in the case of Dubai, Banks like RBS or Commerzbank will take you to court forcing you to come up with a plan eventually.

The debt of both Dubai and Emirates speaks for itself, isn't it?

It is actually beautiful to see your slow but steady movement from being an apologist over to the side of more educated people on the matter (maybe even with insider knowledge and/or a degree in Management, let alone Aviation or Airline Management)

But let me ask you a question:

Do you think it is possible to discover a scam by looking at officlal documents (aka verifiable information) or don’t you think people who worked for Emirates might be able to give you more information which is useful. Don’t you think that actual documents about the performance of an airline (i.e. from a handling agent and/or a CRS with 100% accurate information about the costs and revenues) is more useful than official EK accounts?


And I do not want irish or eddy to 'watergate' the EK HQ during the Noir part of the day, ;)

It is already obvious enough, isn't it? :D

Fortuna Düsseldorf, we are not in the Fuel Dump thread.

Speak in English, not in codes.

Ironically, (I do not think that you have such knowledge) Rheinmetall is actually from Düsseldorf, but they had less fortune selling the Leopard tanks to places like Qatar or Saudi-Arabia.@:-)

Again, aside from the Eurofighter, you have to buy other stuff from Germany in order to get what you want as a foreign Government, i.e. a basket case airline from Berlin. :D

Although, it does not look too good at the moment (both financially and regarding the feeder flights to AUH)

AFAIR, Qatar provided some money (and earned a nice return to cross-subsidize the losses at QR) by helping put a major German car maker when they needed some cash on short notice. ;)

It looks to me that Qatar does not only have the deepest pockets, but they also have the smartest plan to get where they want to be.

You're not talking about an event or a series of events that have been covered up, are you?

You might be able to cover up a scam for a while, but you're sure to run into trouble if that turns into decades, especially if you've had a good turnover of VPs and SVPs over that period.

On a side note, it is difficult to view your position as informed with those vague, ambiguous and obscure statements followed by the wink emoticon.

I am really sorry for that and given the audience, my motivation, time & money, that's really all I can offer.

Kudos to eternal for investing huge amounts of time. ^

I really appreciate the effort, despite the case being lost per se.

You seem to be one of guys who is really interested. In case you are interested to join a conference in the near future, just send me a mail and I will get you in touch with experts and insiders, who should know what is going on.

I am pretty sure EK can get you from OZ to Durban in September... :cool:

Subject of thread: "Is Emirates a financial scam?"
All of the above: Completely irrelevant to the topic at hand.
On the one side, there are arguments claiming Emirates is a scam based on "everyone knows...", "I'm more educated than you are so I'm right", "experts agree..." (although these experts are rarely named or their views linked), "it doesn't make sense to me so it must be so", "it wouldn't work in the US so it must be wrong", cherry-picking of statistics, flip-flopping arguments ("load factors are the only thing that matters"/"load factors are unimportant", "only non-stops are profitable"/"ULH is unprofitable") and long excursions into completely irrelevant waffle.

On the other side, people - particularly eternaltransit but numerous others- have provided financial analysis using independent data from IATA, publicly-published fares, load factor data which is not questioned by anyone, international information on the GDP of Dubai, etc to demonstrate that EK is not being underwritten by a gov't that can't afford to do so.

But yeah, keep telling yourself that "the other side" lacks critical thinking. :rolleyes:

As noted upthread, a degree in Aviation management is not rocket science. I know, because I've done rocket science, and this is not it. Repeatedly saying that you're right because everyone else is uneducated just makes you look like an idiot.
I'm a frequent business traveller and about to board my 21st EK flight in 3 years (in Y, unless I get an op-up). If you'd ever been on an EK flight you'd know that it's not just (or even mainly) "backpackers" nor are the prices between Europe and Australia appreciably cheaper than the other options. Yes, as a BUSINESS TRAVELLER, I'm willing to pay slightly more for one connection than two. But just because you keep repeating "backpackers, backpackers, backpackers" doesn't make it so.
It is actually depressing to see your (and the OP's) repeated depiction of anyone who disagrees with you as "less educated."

It is actually depressing to see you again (like the OP) referring to unnamed people with "insider knowledge" rather than to independent, documented information.

"I'm right because I know stuff you don't and I can't tell you where I got it and you're too stupid to understand anyway" is the approach of a 4-year-old to an argument, not an adult.
Do I believe IATA more than your "insider knowledge". Yes.
Do I think that people who work for EK are going to voluntarily provide "proof" of subsidies (if such proof actually exists)? No, of course not.
Do I think you or the OP would believe people who work for EK if they provide proof that EK is not subsidized? Probably not.

Do you doubt the information from IATA about loads, revenue, profits, etc that were linked above? What do IATA have to gain by lying about this?
What does ANYTHING in that post have to do with EK or Dubai? (You remember: the topic of this thread.)

So someone from EK gave you load and fares and also which pax what amount on that specific flight? Load factor and fares are absolutly no guarantee for revenue on that flight. I know flights with a load factor of 95% and U class is still available. Also flights with a load of 75% and only R, E, Y are available (i.e EK2 LHR-DXB only possible with R or higher fare in Economy due to flight restrictions)

*if you are unfamiliar with EK booking classes, U lowest regular fare, R/E/Y obvy highest

Longer post will follow as soon as I have time (no transit times..)

As I've maintained throughout this thread, I have absolutely no financial interest in the success of EK or any other airline and I use them because of the price, schedule and connectivity works for my needs. I have no particular affinity apart from my own rational self-interest when it comes to choosing travel.

I also find Flyertalk quite a useful place - and having inaccurate factoids floating about or misinformation out there going unchallenged, I think is a disservice to the forum and the readers, so that is my interest in this thread. I am pleased to see the OP, for instance, actually linking information, rather than initially just making unfounded statements - although perhaps the context of his links is lost, perhaps that too will also change.

To put it another way - I think the vast majority of people here are neutral in terms of their opinion and are perfectly willing to change their minds, that is, they have no vested interest or dogmatic, ideological stance they need to defend at all costs for whatever reason. But they aren't idiots, blindly believing everything that is out there - arguments on all sides need to be looked at to see if it matches up to reality, or if it's a hypothesis, whether it stands up to observed phenomenon already - in a neutral fashion

As to how my opinions have evolved over the course of the thread, I think the thing that surprised me was just level of leverage that EK is employing in their business model - an entirely leased fleet, pretty much, which means I don't think EK will ever be a big-league, top profits operator, at least, for a very long time (their trumpeting of great results in 2014-15 still doesn't mask 5% margin).

I am still not convinced that EK is fraudulently presenting accounts and is receiving cash injections: not because I blindly believe the reports that are published - as I've said before, companies all over the world, in all jurisdictions, have been able to carry out accounting fraud, the West is certainly no exception, companies try and spin their annual reports to look as good as possible, that is a thing that anyone with experience in capital markets knows - but because of all the other factors you'd need in place for that hypothesis to be credible (Dubai would need the money, the length of time this goes on diminishes the probabilities etc.) and that the case for legitimate funding of operations is also plausible.

As to your direct questions, which I will answer together:
All the information has to be looked at in the context in which it is given, e.g. how it's been obtained - and the limitations on the conclusions you can make from each piece of information - and all of that forms part of the narrative jigsaw and models you build and assign probabilities to, to see the the likelihood of all of the scenarios you're trying to eliminate or confirm.

To discover accounting frauds of the type that are alleged at EK, you see whether the official documents are consistent with other information that comes from different sources, or various red flags that have no plausible explanations. If we see that EKs published accounts seem to be consistent, then we can assign it a higher probability of being non-fraudulent.

Documents from people who worked for a company really depend on who the people are and what access they had - it's very rare for an individual to have complete access across the entire group, from operations to finance etc. and be able to take all of that away with them and still be current. As we know from all the caveats when investing, past performance is not indicative of future performance...!

Similarly, in your example of handling agents and/or CRS, it really depends on the how much access the agent has and what kind of scope the data extends to. Is it one market, multi markets, multiple segments - how far back does it go, how detailed is it? Is it just yields and loads? How does a handling agent have access to things like finance terms, or derivative transactions for fuel hedging? Is it cherry-picked by a disgruntled employee who has an axe to grind, or is it a leak of an internal data stream? For instance, I have seen constant loads at one station of 95-100% for all flights for a month - does the agent at another station also incorporate that into their data, or do they only see their small little slice of the network and extrapolate?

In short - not all information has equal use, so it is important to check things for consistency across other sources, state your methodology and acknowledge which parts rely on which data. Then you create some scenarios and then it's up to readers to see which ones are more credible - and it's the onus on the readers to sort out their own biases and lenses of interpretations before doing that, or at least justifying it if they want to contribute to the discussion!

A question for you though: is your position based on the fact you have friends (in Germany, I think?) who told you stories and gave you the information they had access to, which don't, in your opinion, match up with EKs published statements?

Because we, as outsiders, do not have access to the real financial documents (unless they are discovered and published by ME3's critics), all we can do is apply common sense. Common sense educated with experience.

Imagine you open a hamburger stand. You care about quality, and want to serve only the best. But, suddenly, across the street, two other businesses open, also serving high-quality burgers. These businesses are backed by enormous resources; it fact, they are vanity projects for their owners who just want the world to enjoy a fantastic hamburger, profits be damned. They keep expanding their restaurants, making them the nicest looking hamburger restaurants in town. They also expand their menu endlessly, serve free drinks and fancy condiments with their burgers, and keep prices far below what hamburgers cost elsewhere in town.

So, tell me, is your hamburger stand likely to be very profitable? :)

That's pretty much exactly what's going on here. Except, perhaps, that your stand is in Geneva, Switzerland, a mile from the French border. You have to sell your burgers in Swiss Francs, but there are a bunch of other famous hamburger stands selling their burgers in Euros -- which are suddenly a heck of a lot cheaper than Swiss Francs, and your foreign competitors can now buy many of their local ingredients for much less than you can buy them in Switzerland. These stands are also closer to where most hamburger eaters live, and they can save time by eating there.

See where this is going? Think about it, and common sense should lead you to some logical conclusions.

Is this statement true for all airlines?

Or are you just saying that the EK is habitually, and demonstrably, publishing falsified accounts? And are you saying that PricewaterhouseCoopers, their auditor, is complicit in this falsification?

You have yet to give any reason to back up this theory that the accounts are in anyway unrealistic.

All you are going on is your own hunch, your own world view, your own opinion, which you seem unlikely or unwilling to reconsider.

The trouble with such analogies is that they are never analogous to the actual scenario. (A burger stand a mile from the Franco/Swiss border!!! In your "analogy", the burger stand should just drive to an area more conducive to burger sales than Switzerland). You can talk about the actual scenario, rather than changing industries, business models, and scale.

But, if you want a hamburger analogy - perhaps the US3 is McDonald's, which is losing market share and profit, and gradually realising it has to change its offering to compete with the new crop of fresh, young, exciting competitors that are thriving all around it.

We welcome common sense in this thread! So, less burger flipping and bad analogies, please!

This is the amateur approach you are talking about.

The more professional approach includes the booking classes and all other relevant data... ;););)

As pointed out numerous times, about 10, maybe 12 years ago, a lot of experts were really interested about the substance behind the bling bling of Emirates and invested accordingly into getting the necessary infos.

The conclusion was rather easy!

You still did not get it, right?

The official accounts are perfectly fine, however are somehow limited, because they leave a lot of questions open.

And even the income of parts of the EK Group, i.e. DNATA is built on monopolies, which are simply illegal in the EU or other markets.

On top of that, the owner of Emirates accumulated debt worth $160 billion, so does it really matter whether internal pricing and other accounting practices show us that Dubai World is profitable, Emirates Airlines is profitable, the Utility Provider is not and the part of Dubai running the freeways finished with a black zero.

No, because the whole airline and sheikdom is leveraged beyond belief, some might even call it a scam.

Educated people also have a pretty good understanding what it takes to build up an airline like this, not to mention what it takes to build up routes or even sustain them, again educated people. I asked to find us one to support your views, so far you could not deliver...

In an educated discussion, you normally put things into perspective to give the listeners a more complete picture.

Aviation is a highly complex, still severely regulated industry, hence putting the performance of EK into perspective helps understanding the big picture, obviously not in your case, but generally this seems to be the case.

Since you are in GVA occasionally, you might know the role of IATA. Once a mighty powerhouse, nowadays more or less an institution dedicated to education and training, nothing more nothing less. But I recommend WATS to numerous people already and I assume eternal makes use of it as well. ;)

If you are in GVA the next time, please find us an expert willing to comment in how far a low fare / high cost airline is able to make money starting at a load of 59.9%. Thank you in advance.

Could you be more specific on what questions exactly are left open? I think the only one brought up was purchases from related parties.