When do "insults" become "slanderous"?

When the person allegedly being defamed has suffered injury as a result of statements that are false and transmitted to someone other than that person, and sometimes, additionally if no proper, reasonable research was carried out prior to making the claim/there is an intent to injure.

Depends on the jurisdiction as well, of course.

Do you think this "Emirates is a scam" can turn into something slanderous?

I don't think Flyertalkers have anywhere near the amount of influence to be able to have an injurious effect on EK, no matter how much some of the members on this and other sub-forums would like (especially when it comes to "product enhancements") :D

I was more thinking of the CEO of Delta insulting the CEO of EK.

Defamation cases are notoriously hard to win in the United States, so I don't think it would ever get there...the CEO of DL hasn't literally come out and said "fraud", they have only made allegations of subsidies. Then the question becomes is Tim Clark himself being defamed here, or only Emirates? If Tim Clark was being directly accused of fraud, then perhaps there would be a case, or you would need a judge to connect the dots between the allegations of subsidy and Tim Clark's position that the accounts are true and therefore EK is committing fraud.

Any lawyers out there who specialise in this kind of thing?

That would be a naive move and definitely lack of understanding about US system. It may end up US will make example by going after one airline. Who has the least political capital? it is EK.

If you haven't noticed Enron guys were not punished for a long time. Martha Stewart went to jail for $25,000 insider trading mistake. That's how system works.

I doubt any government or corporation expect competitors to show confidential information.

Talking should be left to trained public relations specialists and/or attorneys.

In the situation I outlined (first sentence of my post), there is nothing to make an example of.

Wait, wait, wait.

Are you seriously surprised that you come to the subforum for the Emirates Frequent Flyer program and find that many (but by no means all) of the people who read and respond are - wait for it - members of the Emirates Frequent Flyer program???? I mean, it's like going to the Washington Redskins Facebook page (I assume there is such a thing) and finding - shock, horror - fans of the Washington Redskins! Amazing.

Do you think people who have never been on an airplane, people who have only flown DL domestically, or people who don't use the internet at all are going to get involved in a discussion about the financial basis of EK? Really?

Just because I choose to fly EK - and I do so because the schedule suits me and the price is comparable - not cheaper, but comparable - with its competitors - does not mean I'm "completely irrational" about its finances (or anything else). Again - insulting people is no substitute for providing a cogent and persuasive argument.

Further, I note that UA1K_no_more lists himself as "UA GM, AA GM, DL GM". Hmm, hardly a US3 hater or someone with EK status.
Which airline would that be?

My flights from SYD-DXB and DXB-GVA are close to bursting. I was op-uped on the first flight a few weeks ago because Y was overbooked. My flights yesterday were close to full - not 100% but well over 90%.

Low fare? I don't think so. Again, my flights to Europe are similar to the prices set by QF, SQ and others.

If 59.9% is the low end of the load factor, so what? As others have said, this can be (and is) offset by high load factors at other times.

I wouldn't insult the experts I know - and although my work is in, ya know, radio, there are some aviation communication people involved - with such an absurd question.
Funny you mention Swiss/French border; I've just returned from there. I had an apartment with kitchen so was shopping in grocery stores. When translated into Australian dollars, the prices in the Swiss grocery stores were 1.5 to 4 times more expensive than in the French grocery stores. And indeed, for as long as I've been going there, every Saturday there's a string of cars crossing the border from Switzerland to the first French grocery store, stocking up, and heading back.

"Common sense" would say that the Swiss grocery stores are empty, wouldn't it?

Except they weren't. I went into 3 or 4 and they were doing a brisk trade. Why?

There's an old principle of economics that says "People will always act in their own self-interest." This is rubbish.

First, people don't always have an accurate perception of "their own self-interest". Anyone who's ever woken up with a hangover can attest to this; what seems like a good idea in the short-term turns out to be a bad idea in the longer term.

While paying less for groceries would seem, to most, to be "best self-interest", there are clearly some for whom the convenience of shopping closer to home, being able to pay in CHF, getting known brands, supporting the Swiss economy, or something else, made paying higher prices in Geneva worthwhile.

Secondly, people rarely have enough information to weigh all the options for their own self-interest.

There were probably people in the Swiss grocery stores who didn't know (or didn't believe when told) that the prices were much lower in France. There were probably tourists who didn't know how easy (and cheap) it was to get a bus to the nearest French shopping centre.

The maxim really is "People will always act in their own perceived self-interest, based on the limited information available."

Bottom line, there are a heck of lot of profitable restaurants (possibly including burger stands, though why anyone would sell (or eat) burgers in Europe is beyond me) in Geneva "a mile from the French border." But they offer excellent food. Unlike the US 3, if I understand your analogy, which has higher costs but offer really poor service.

If one looks at the allegations directly levelled against EK in the US3 white paper, however, Emirates has already given a response directly, yet the US3 are still not satisfied.

Given this, one can imply that the US3 still believe that EK are lying in their public statements and so, how would EK go about demonstrating the veracity of their rebuttals - it puts them in the impossible position of having to divulge confidential information, or further, details of arrangements with commercial partners who might not want that information out in the open.

Let's take the specific allegations:
Now, EK say that "All cash losses incurred by Emirates as a result of its fuel trades in place in 2008/09 were settled in full from the airline’s own cash reserves and not paid for by the government of Dubai. The letters of credit mentioned in the white paper were in fact provided by Emirates to our owners, ICD, in support of the fuel trades novated, not the other way round."

To corroborate this, we would need:
- information about the exact nature of the trades: notional amount of fuel hedged, how the hedge operated (was it a straight price fix, a cap or floor etc.?), what were the strike prices involved, payment schedules, whether it was one on one contract or series of them at different prices
- whether the trades were unwound early at a penalty, and at what price
- counterparties would need to state exactly what and when margin calls were required, whether they gave any goodwill/grace periods, and who/what entity satisfied them with what collateral (cash or otherwise)

For instance, if you had a contract with the obligation to buy fuel at 3.0USD/gal with the notional amount of 1.333 billion gallons, the notional value of the contracts looks like it is 4bn USD. But that doesn't mean if the fuel price drops to say, 2.8USD/gal, you lose 4bn (unless that was an awful derivative negotiated!) - there is a notional loss or margin call of only 266M USD. But still that doesn't mean that EK has to pay 266M USD. We don't know exactly when the calculation periods are - daily, weekly, monthly?. We don't know whether EK requested to unwind the trade (that is, cancelled it), and what penalties there were for that, and whether banks would be happy to do that. Perhaps they would: in 2008 to have this derivative or set of derivatives their books would be risky, they may have been very happy to get the future risk off their books for a small cash payment.

Derivatives (especially in 2008) are generally opaque by their very nature: banks construct them to provide a solution to a specific client in cases like this.

I think you would agree that to really corroborate EK's story to most reasonable observers, you would need this confidential information, and require the permission of your counterparties to do as well (I think Xlr mentioned in 955 it was Morgan Stanley who by all accounts did quite well on the deal). One would think that MS would not be willing to divulge confidential derivative contract deal information, even if their counterparty requested it.

The next allegation is:
EK replies that:"Comparably lower airport charges or charge exemptions for transfer passengers are neither a subsidy nor discriminatory as all airlines who use the infrastructure at Dubai International (DXB) benefit. Emirates pays the full published rates at DXB, which are highly competitive, commercially based, and in fact higher than a number of other comparable major airports such as Kuala Lumpur (KUL).Emirates pays the full published rates at DXB, which are highly competitive, commercially based, and in fact higher than a number of other comparable major airports such as Kuala Lumpur (KUL)."

Clearly for us to verify this, Emirates would have to state in detail, itemise possibly, exactly what they pay the airport for everything, and furthermore, other carriers at the airport would have to do the same thing, in order for us to see whether EK is getting an overly preferential deal on anything at DXB.

I don't think the other 100 airlines at DXB want to get involved and will want to waste their time publishing that information, especially as it's confidential (one could argue higher users of the airport get a commercially sensitive discount - just look at hotel special corporate rates all around the world, for instance: you don't want to let one tour operator know you give them 90USD when you give another 85USD).

So once again, EK is put in an impossible position - how are they going to satisfy people beyond their statements, without divulging confidential information, and with the permission of others who really don't want to be doing that either?

Now, this is where I think EK can be more transparent - how much do they pay dnata for handling, compared with how much dnata charge other people. Once again, you run into the issue of: how willing are other clients of the related parties (such as dnata, ENOC - one of the fuel suppliers, etc.) to have their details published? We obviously can't rely simply on the word of EK or any Dubai company, given the allegation is that they are all in a conspiracy together.
--

So, whilst I certainly take your point that in a reasonable world, no one would expect competitors to divulge confidential information, the narrative that the US3 is trying to fashion creates such a high bar of evidence to satisfy them (and it's a very good PR tactic to try and set the burdens of proof for the entities you are in PR battle with - you set the rules of the game, if you can get your audience on side) that EK are put into the position whether they will have to divulge confidential information to meet that standard (whether it's set fairly or unfairly). Even then, if you are the ones setting the bar, you can just set it even higher by claiming you are "unsatisfied" - all you need to do is never state would it would take to change your mind.

The book that the US3 cited mentioned that it was Morgan Stanley. Funnily, the US3 did not include the name in their report.

If it was Morgan Stanley, it's fair to assume the hedge was settled amicably, since they underwrote [is this the right term?] an Emirates bond issue in 2011 (http://centreforaviation.com/news/em...ond-sale-87302)

Re airport service fees, I'm sure DL and UA could state what they pay in Dubai for their flights, as they are already involved in this. But would that help at all? I mean, who determines if a volume discount price is too low?

Ahem, of course its similar to the price set by QF. EK and QF set the price to many destinations together. Certainly ex- AU though QF/EK is not one of the cheaper options to Europe, and up there with SQ and often higher than CX.

Of course, but the highlighted part is my point: there has been a repeated claim by the OP and FD1971 that EK offers lower fares to undercut its competitors. At least AU-EU, this is simply not true.

And I can attest that this has been the case since at least 2004. They've added almost 10x fold capacity in/out of Australia over the past decade and fares never softened. They command a premium across all cabins. And everytime I flew with them out and in over this period, we went full house or close to (and I travelled off peak).

The only route they did significant discounting on was India, but these specials were limited and rare that came with a lot of restrictions.

So to summarise the two main posters that are convinced the Emirates is a scam are, one who has a considerable amount invested in one (or all?) of the US3 airlines and sees EK as a threat to their profitability, and therefore his investment.

The second one saw EK data many years ago (5, 10, 15 or 20 years ago?) on either a route or the entire Emirates German network and in that snapshot (one month, a quarter, half a year or a full year data?) he is now convinced that nothing has changed in that time. Do I have this correct?:confused:

Then we have the arguments against EK, where the two main posters above are actually contradicting each other when discussing EK. The OP is convinced that it must be a scam because no one has copied the same plan of Emirates (TK, EY, QR....:p), yet FD1971 keeps telling us that what EK is doing is nothing new and all they are doing is copying various airlines that are in fact profitable at the moment....KL, SQ, CX.;);)

So what are we to make of all this, seeing as we do not have any facts other than the US3 paper (which doesn't show subsidies to EK) or anything else that has been linked by the above mentioned posters?

I have a question in the back of my mind though, if FD1971 saw the EK data, is he able to present it to us?:rolleyes: If not, was the data for internal (confidential) use only? Did he work for EK that he saw the data? If not, as he has been shown the data, what type of EK employee just shows data to an acquaintance if he doesn't have a grudge against the company that pays him?:eek: