If you by "irrational EK fan quality" and "EK apologists" mean posters that present verifiable facts and use logical reasoning, you are correct.
The OP's original post and other comments have been completely devoid of facts, and he has purposely misrepresented quoted articles many times, including trying to tell an article's author what the article REALLY says...

edy, I really do not care about the exact number and whether it is 32,42 or 52.

In this particular case, both the owner of Aviation in Dubai and the airline increased their debt massively, despite claiming to be sucessful.

There is absolutely no doubt that aviation in the US failed resulting in billions of lost money for nearly all stakeholders...and it also failed simply because it was and is subject to a relatively free market. You cannot expect a broken airline to take care of a terminal building it owns...and you cannot expect an airline in a market known for razor thin margins to offer Orient Express like service, but at least you pay accordingly and you can fly cross-country for $300-400. Kennedy cared about low fares and safety and deregulation achieved both. Kennedy did not care about bankrupt cities and airlines and whether they can invest in (Aviation) infrastructure or not.

Aviation in Dubai also failed (financially) and both Dubai and EK increased their debt, but other stakeholders won (i.e. the backpackers) so under the bottom line it is perfectly fine for many people involved and as long as Qatar, Abu and Dubai are willing and able to pay for it, we should be grateful and happily fly the ME3.

For those fares, just twenty years ago, you experienced the likes of PIA, Biman or some obscure charter carriers from Turkey.

So you are saying that it's wrong, irrational, or "fanatical" to demand proof of a higher standard than has been served up in this thread, or by the players involved?

If you so easily reach for these terms, which are clearly meant in a derogatory way, then the only reason you don't apply similar terms to IAH is because then you would also fall into that category.

iahphx's comments are, I think, clearly more "fanatical" than any others. He keeps brown-nosing his admired selection of US aviation bosses, commentators and journalists - while disregarding anything emanating from the opposing camp as impossible to believe - or just disregarding most of the questions that his posts here provoke.

And, after 1000 trips through US airports, has never seen anyone sprawled on the ground.

You have never pointed this out before. Given that you never went further than saying you had an "Aviation Management" degree, you never implied that you were still (or ever) working in the field.

So, you should indeed know what you are talking about - and yet, others that should know what they are talking about dismiss the allegations out of hand.

(By the way - what do you think of the proposed IAG buyout of Aer Lingus? I would actually love to know)

Have you ever consulted for Emirates? Or Etihad? Or Qatar Airways?

Or Turkish Airlines?

You may portray yourself as an independent, unaffiliated operator who is not directly impacted and can therefore soar above the fray to gain a critical overview of the entire industry. But if your education, teaching, employment and consultation services have been predominantly gained/earned/given in a particular type of airline environment, and in a certain limited geographic environment - then perhaps you are no more qualified to judge than the layman on the street, and, in fact, given your decades of experience, may be imbued with a bias towards a certain style of operation and a certain type of airline.

Saying you are an expert, or considering yourself an expert, is a very different thing than being an expert.

And besides - your experience is not at all relevant to the matter - unless you have certain proof and evidence to aid the US3's case, which you so far have failed to produce. You're offering to provide explanation, yet you continually appear to just belittle those whose opinion is different to yours, and back up your opinion only with your claims to an education and experience that "should" (as you state) be relevant - but may not actually be!

(The airline industry, like every other industry, is awash with "experts" who still sometimes get things wrong!)

US Government never considers public opinion on trade agreements. Otherwise we wouldn't have any trade agreement. An off-topic analogy would be current TPP negotiations. President, Republicans and businesses are for it. Labor unions, Tea Party and (get this) Democrats are against it. You never know who will win. Every one knows it is not a zero sum game. Only government can guess the big picture.

BTT, I still am under the impression EK should realize this is not a popularity contest. They should concentrate more on politics and back room negotiations and deals. Interviews and ads just waste of time.

Also repeating same little information in various formats and interviews is not useful. Americans love a good story with lot of analogies. What I see is repetition of exactly same information on web, white paper, inflight magazine and interviews.

Service quality is not a factor in Open Skies agreement, so having better product is not going make their case. Bringing up that well known issue just irritates US3.

Lot of readers can reason with your explanations on FT. Probably they could use your help.

Don't worry. The UAE is already one of the top 10 countries when it comes to lobbying spend in the USA

https://img.washingtonpost.com/blogs...fluence600.jpg

Emirates and Etihad have commenced lobbying in Washington in a big way in the past 2 months - the US3 have left them no choice.

There are hundreds of people working in the City who have far more knowledge of BA, One World and aviation in Ireland than myself, so I am really not able to comment on issues regarding BA and Aer Lingus in any competent way.

Absolutely, no doubt about that.

Hence, I asked questions that are of interest to me multiple times throughout this discussion, first and foremost if EK is running a black zero from ops. these days?

This is really interesting to me.

Without any doubt they lost billions getting to where they are at the moment, but now we are talking about 2.5 waves, well on their way to three waves and we are talking about a position of a well-established quality carrier.

Without any doubt, they are about to enter the era of legacy costs, without any doubt, the complexity of running such an operation will increase costs massively, but parts of the network look good, i.e. Europe-Asia.

I actually think that is what is motivating people to become EK "apologists", not any deep underlying affection for EK. Instead wanting to take to task someone who exudes cultural superiority. I mean look at the latest remarks about US airports, and complete inability to comprehend that people with experiences other than his own might perceive them differently. Undermines credibility.

By the way, I've made it clear that I think the big A380 mid west /west coast services are loss making at the fares they seem to be charging. Although QF does make the longest A380 flight in the world work, seemingly.

However, I'm still waiting for the explanation why 777 services to the major east coast population centres such as Washington, Philly and Boston are so "mind boggling". In the long run they may work, they may not (and maybe that's the plan, they don't work, but get routed via MXP, MUC or BCN instead), but wouldn't think they stretch credibility too much. A number of airlines have similar length 777 flights from major population centres to their hubs, including DL and UA.

So, which it? Pravda or a reputable publication? You can't seem to make your mind up :D

Very interesting point, because this used to be EK's strategy.

We flood the markets with capacity, we subsidize all the backpackers, hence society will start to embrace us and we can survive, because we are popular. It worked in the UK (creating lots of fan support on FT, for example) and it worked in other markets as well, not as good as in the UK, but still okay.

Etihad's strategy might come to an abrupt hold now...with Germany starting to put restrictions on what the EK Feeder slaves are allowed to fly. And if the slaves are not allowed to work, I fear they will have to survive in the Colliseum aka the market without Etihad's money, which will mean market exit in some months.

Stepping back a little.

The OP theory is that EK must be financially rigged to be able to sustain this route expansion.
The Fair Skies movement pivots the argument on 'unfair subsidies'.
FD1971 asserts that EK must be heavily subsidised along with all of its supply chain.

The OP theory has so many holes in it and lacks evidence.

The Fair Skies argument is plain hypocrisy, not to mention that they're chosen an accusation that can NEVER be shown to be untrue - even if EK open up their leather bound books, they will still be accused of rigging them. AND we know that EK brings jobs and money to the US like no other airline.

FD1971's perspective sounds plausible at face value, but it's just an another take on fuel subsidies/discounting. Even if EK can do things so cheaply at home base (because of shifting costs to other business units), more than 90 percent of their daily flights from outstations rely on services and products supplied in OTHER markets where ICD/EK group/DXB gov have little or no financial interest.

We can spend thousands of hours debating these allegations and nothing will come out of it. I don't expect the OP or FD1971 to change their views -they're pretty hard on those and have shown no interest in challenging them. Especially the OP who keeps spinning the same ideas, sees and reads -and misreads everything as further evidence to his theory.

I don't claim to be an expert on finances nor airlines. I am far removed from that. Even the field that I am in, I am far from claiming myself to be an expert (even if my academic title indicates so). The reality is, one can label gibberish as the spoken word of God and build a long list of convictions and rules. Whether they can prove it or convince others, that depends on the intelligence of the audience not so much about the quality or format of the gibberish.

Six months on, I still can't see any evidence to what the OP and the US3 claim. And judging from others engaged in this debate, can't see it happening with others either. What amazes me is how long this poll has been open for, and how the Yes numbers have been creeping up. Where are these people's views and comments? I would love to hear their perspectives.

I was a little bit surprised about his comments regarding US airports as well. But again, I do not expect a broken airline to be able to invest into a terminal building and I also do not expect a broken city let alone broken state- or national Government to be able to invest into state of the art infrastructure.

I simply do not like ultra long haul flights and I started looking at them from the perspective of a manufacturer by simply adding up the numbers to see if any airline can make money flying 8-9k (which would mean demand for A&B)

We did not really figure out a lot of routes where it would make sense... and that was during a time, when oil was significantly cheaper.

And routes from Singapore were already were high on the list. ;) :D

Do not get me wrong, the 77W is so much better than the 772LR and, especially, the A345, but I still prefer spreading people at a regional hub after flying them for 3.5-4.5k, so using a bit more than one bird instead of nearly two birds for a 7/7 operation.

Do you mean the new user Rich.And. from MSP/ATL with no posts so far...?

I am pretty sure he voted YES

Can the admins make the commenting on this thread a requirement for voting?

We're still looking for an expert that proves the OPs statement that EK is a financial scam...

Neither you or the OP have provided any evidence other than that you feel it in your water :)

As I've said many times, I'm open minded... I just want proof.

Or maybe that they've had to have at least X number of posts on FT before they vote (similar to the old coupon connection).

I find it very strange that the YES vote had almost doubled in the last 5 days or so. It was 10 for long while, now 19.