Dein Bruder im Geiste, Yuropflyer...

Absolutely, hence my comparisons to the GDR and the SED back in the days.

They simply did not allow certain things to be part of the GDR and used their media to confirm just that. And every critical comment about the viability of the next five year plan was denounced as Western Propaganda.

Indeed, you find a lot of similarities in this thread and in recent publications from the Gulf.

A 3/7 private charter should not be compared with real airline operations.

Quite often, companies argue that the time savings are well worth it to have those flights.

Delta learned it the hard way a few years ago. Most of their routes turned out to be far more difficult than originally expected.

And there is another main difference between the ME3 and airlines from the US and EU in those markets.

Corruption is a major issue. EK can simply pay everyone they have to have in order to make it work locally, Compliance is probably not a real issue and even if it would be a topic, a nephew of the owner would take care of it. @:-)

The US3 and EU airlines are simply subject to completely different laws regarding transparency and Compliance and would have a far more difficult time... ;)

The case is pretty clear, the arguments have been presented by the US3, so I really do not understand why the apologists and fans continue to argue against it.

Maybe, you can update us with further info, but as pointed out numerous times before, finding arguments to explain $44 Billion will be difficult (but probably entertaining at the same time)

The Economist is certainly a trustworthy publication, but you can compare some of the pieces with the rants by Krugman in the NYT, highly subjective opinion pieces based on his personal beliefs in Economics

I consider them to be entertaining, I consider them to be written for a certain audience, but that's about it. It is one opinion about Germany's Energiewende and that's about it, to give one recent example from April 2015.

There is absolutely no doubt that the ME3 are connecting parts of the world and that many people prefer good inflight service and low fares to the exact opposite, an old LH 744 or DL 763 (some of them are actually from the Gulf region, IIRC) not to mention state of the art airport infrastructure in some of the older parts at Heathrow, Gatwick, CDG or Frankfurt.

Dubai Duty Free does the rest and as pointed out before, several VP of Emirates pointed out numerous times that they wanted to copy Pan Am, SQ/Changi and of course, Schiphol.

But this is not the question we discuss since months. The question is whether you can make money flying a passenger from DFW to Lagos at a very competitive fare to use the example of the poor guy who caused the emergency landing at WAW.

Unfortunately, they did not state the number of passengers onboard, but other pieces completed the usual story; super low fare appealing to the backpackers, high operating costs due to detours, ultra long haul flights, so under the bottom line not too many factors going in the right direction.

Did I mention Cargo?

No.

Did Clark mention Cargo?

Oh yes, complaining about the fact that the Indians travel with too many bags hence reducing the payload even further.

And before some people demand a source, AFAIR; it was in Airline Business.

Is it conclusive evidence?

No, but more than enough for the educated reader to get an idea how certain parts of the network perform financially. Add the debt of Dubai and EK, take a closer look how both increased since the turn of the Century and you get a pretty good picture about the financial viability of the idea of becoming a Superconnector.

Cool. Can we agree that it's in the best interests of the public to let the game run its course?

Gosh. This thread ist _still_ a thing? And OP is still arguing on his own business minded level?

The above post paragraph is much like this thread: from how it starts to indictating how and why it continues as it does.

By the way, honestly, I didn't realize we all unwittingly relied upon messed-up clocks. ;)

Indeed, one of the downsides of such boards and especially people who post all day long about a profession they only know from the stands...and slopes. :D:D:D

Compliance and transparency are wonderful in the US and EU? There is plenty of evidence to doubt that it's so great in practice when it comes to the interests of investors/consumers/creditors.

Airlines aren't a profession. Nor is Emirates.

[Skiing, that is another thing. :D However, shooting wild pigs in the neighborhood is mere recreation; and, in the absence of wolves, they are easier than before to get at. :D]

Relegating one's self to be an aviation industry professional is sort of financially pitiful -- just not pitiful in the way of that German "professional" who crashed the Germanwings flight into the mountains of SE France after Lufthansa supported his profession. Would it have been a scandal if EK had the misfortune of trusting Lufty over him? Or would it just be a scam?

I wasn't referring to Emirates or airlines in general.

I was referring to your post from yesterday that you know nothing about Fleece Shirts.:p

Please, do not get me started commenting on your posts about airlines or Emirates. ;)

Whether it is boring or not is neither here nor there and has no bearing on its journalism. As stated, the Economist writes from a position which promotes the ideas of classical liberal economics, and therefore free trade, over things such as state capitalism.

Have you read the article? Because it doesn't actually cheer one way or the other - it simply gives a recap of what's been going on in the past few months. As you may know, the Economist isn't really a polemicist publication (except of course, in certain circumstances, this one not being one of them) - and that article isn't cheering from the stands one way or another.

Insinuating that there has been corruption simply because you disagree with what you think has been said is rather unfair and quite similar to the attacks against EK - I think your case would be strengthened by going through the article and telling us why the authors are incorrect and debunking any of their statements?

Can this thread be put out of its misery once the poll reaches 100?

It's beyond tedious...

Indeed - and I don't think anyone expects UAE based media to be independent fearless champions of journalism.

That's why we try not to take their statements at face value without corroborating evidence.

However, media in other jurisdictions also don't get free passes, especially in the U.S. with its massive corporate lobbying industry. If you think that journalists such as those at the Economist can be bought off with free hospitality, then similarly, you must regard all Western media as similarly potentially compromised - or does the issue only come up when articles are written that you don't agree with.

So, what do we do - we read media articles for the perspective, but when evaluating what is and is not possible, we take the most independent data out there, not analysis (as we all know, there are so many opinions-for-hire out there).

Given the independent data says that there is a plausible case for these operations to be profitable under certain conditions, we don't need to rely on media reports to back up any cases.

Do you agree that it's in the best interests of the public for the game to run its course?

Hans and Franz trying to pump us up with they're girlie man airline economics.:D

Once again, the argument against EK simply becomes "they are from a dodgy jurisdiction I don't like, so I think they are corrupt in all that they do".

It's a rather weak argument - I mean, large German corporates (e.g. Siemens, Deutsche Bahn - who in an attempt to try and investigate it spied on all the employees! have been notorious for global bribery!

Siemens' culture of bribery cost it a 1.6bn USD fine., and another 1bn USD internal overhaul.
Daimler bribing its way to sell cars.
Even LH has subsidiaries that are implicated in bribery.
BA and VS colluded to fix fuel surchages for illegal profit

I'm sure a quick Google search can bring everyone more examples.

But we don't argue that those companies are all scams - just there are some criminals at work inside the organisation.

This idea that EK has to be guilty because it's based in Dubai is just weak and xenophobic.

Far better to argue the point that the running costs of A380s and the fares and yield mix simply don't add up to make a strong case. And to answer sufficiently the questions raised when evaluating the plausibility of off-balance sheet fraud by opaque transactions (if any).

Or is the argument now - everybody is partaking in some sort of corruption, so when EK say they aren't, they must be lying? Even if that were so (an outstation somewhere bribing locals for business), why does that then for EK but not for other companies, then leave them open to the insinuation that the whole thing is a massive scam?

So on the one hand, you claim:
But on the other hand (in the same post, still referring to the backpackers):
The backpackers who are paying (what you claim are) "the cheapest fares" are also buying gold at a level that makes a difference to Dubai's finances? On what planet?

On the one hand you claim:
and
and
And yet on the other hand:
and
and
Since you've clearly never flown on EK, let me help you out here. The "free limo" is only for Business and First, not for the "really low fare" "90% of passengers on the cheapest Y ticket". Since (according to you) hardly anyone flies in EK J or F, there are really very few (possibly no) "free limo" rides paid for (by EK, Dubai or anyone).

If the A380 is 80% full it doesn't even fill economy; same for the B777. Since you continually claim that everyone on EK is paying "really low fares" we can only assume they all fly with J and F empty. So - no limos then.

Secondly, the "free hotel" only applies on limited itineraries (where the only possible transfer requires a stop of more than 8 hours - or 6 hours in J/F but we've just established that no one ever flies J/F on EK) and does not apply even then to the cheapest fares. So, by your logic that everyone is on the cheapest fares, there are no free hotel stays.

Thirdly, any "stopover" is free if there is no hotel stay involved. It doesn't cost anyone anything if the passenger spends three hours or three days in Dubai paying their own costs.

Finally - and even you must know this - the "showers" are only for First passengers. Poor people from India paying el cheapo fares don't get anywhere near First.

Oh, look, here you've got both the "low fares" and the mythical limos and free stopovers all in one sentence.
In fact, the above was in response to Irishguy providing quotes for Economy Class (where EK was far from being the cheapest option). You know, the class without the limo and free hotels.

Summary: "everyone is paying low fares" and "lots of free limos, free hotels, showers" can't both be true. They may both be false, but at most one can be true.
Wow: Lafontaine, East Germany, Kohl, Tim Burton, Madoff and Lehman - do you think you can come up with any MORE completely irrelevant references to obfuscate the actual topic of this thread? (It's "is EK a financial scam", in case you've forgotten.)

[Some person] was wrong about [some thing] does not equate to "therefore anyone who disagrees with me is wrong about EK."
So: You asked for real research supporting EK, abaca12 provided peer-reviewed research supporting EK, but they don't meet your criteria because - wait for it, they support EK. The only authentic researchers you will accept are the ones who are against the EK3. Sure. :rolleyes:
And this is just racism.

I'm still waiting for you to identify the airlines that fly non-stop between Australia and Germany - I'd pay extra for that.

Are you talking about the US3 White Paper here? Why would you post about $44 Billion if this isn't the amount attributed to EK?

Or are you trying to smear EK with the big amount that is alleged to all three of the airlines? Maybe you have information that EK actually have had $44 Billion of subsidies but you don't want to share it? What is the purpose of that though?

I have another question, you stated that the information is out there for all to see that EK is a scam. This is common knowledge to those in the business, why hasn't those in the know (airlines included I would assume) lobbied their politicians to change the rules to protect their local airlines? Why has it taken 30 years to act? Why now and not 10 years ago when Emirates was starting their expansion efforts? You saw the information all those years ago (again, 10, 15 or 20 years ago?) to confirm that there is no way that the airline isn't subsidised, why has there been no action against them? Seems to me that if it is true what you are telling us, either the politicians aren't protecting their voters in the EU countries, or they are all on the take from EK....:confused: