Even more ironic that whilst Anderson is making such tactless and uncalled for comments re: 9/11 and "arabian peninsula terrorists", that Saudia joined Skyteam in 2012...

I can't believe that any intelligent, educated person would say something so crass, ignorant, and offensive even in private, let alone in such a public way.

Has he retracted the statement? Has he been sanctioned by his employer? I would expect any airline to distance themselves immediately from such a statement, if not immediately fire the guy.

As a CEO who has delivered some really good profits, I'm not sure if the board would want him to go...

Plus, a case could be made that this is an attempt to play on the minds and perceptions of US consumers:

The main threat of course is EK with its MXP-JFK service (which DL and AZ sued to try and stop). However, EK is also the airline with which they have a hard case to prove allegations of subsidy - if there was hard, documented and reliable evidence about EK, I suspect it would have been shouted from the rooftops by now...!

The objective is to try and stop people, upon seeing EK pop up on TATL/TPAC itineraries on their travel agent/comparison sites etc., from booking with them.
The price looks good and there is a marketing campaign around gulf carriers that they offer a superior service. There is an idea that US airlines are scared that consumers, once they fly with EK once, they might start to get a comparatively negative view of their own domestic carrier products - so, US carriers, as they don't want to compete on price as they need to defend their excellent margins otherwise shareholders will be unhappy, need to create a negative impression of the other carriers so consumers book US (and Joint Venture partners) by default. A kind of a reflexive break on gravitating towards "foreign carriers".

Guilt by association by 1) lumping EK alongside two other carriers where more convincing subsidy cases can be made, and 2) this priming in US audience minds of trying to associate gulf carriers with "terrorists" and therefore it being somehow unpatriotic/dangerous to choose a gulf carrier - underhanded perhaps, and perhaps a morally dubious way of competing, but nonetheless effective, at least by the calculations of DL and their corporate communications advisors. DL have a lot of data on their customers and know exactly who they are targeting and their buying motivations - especially with prepared interview answers as an appearance on CNN is likely to be. I don't think any major public CEO is going to be going on national television without being briefed by his own media team about possible questions.

It's similar to the Dubai Ports World controversy ("terrorists come from the middle east, so we can't let a company from the middle east own the ports"), except in this case, US airline carriers have few defenders in the public consciousness and there is a much weaker case in the case of airline competition than there is a debate about foreign ownership of strategic infrastructure assets.

Did he perhaps think that he was on Fox News rather than on CNN, then?

I can't imagine there are many viewers of CNN (banal as it is) that would be led to believe that the ME3 are bad just because a huffing US airline CEO tells them that "that's where the terrorists come from".

That was an appalling statement to make; it's just several orders of magnitude worse if this is an official Delta position.

As for EK's MXP-JFK services (and no-one seems to remember that EK ran HAM-JFK for a few years, several years back), MXP badly needed additional services that AZ either couldn't, or wouldn't, provide. AZ are, presumably, busy bridging the gap now in cooperation with Etihad. Etihad would have similar designs on capturing transatlantic flow, though it looks like they are happy to allow their European partners to operate these services, rather than flying their own metal (which appears to be such a red rag for the US carriers).

Indeed - perhaps I give him too much credit for a cunning plan :D

I totally agree with you re: MXP - I don't think it was randomly chosen as a loss leader to try and penetrate the US TATL market - and now the A380 upgauge from June 1st just I think makes the US carriers start to get a little desperate!

Maybe a retaliatory strike for the DL comments? I hope it was :)

Interesting to see whether EK will try and do a partnership with Easyjet along the lines of Jetblue (low-cost/non-legacy carrier feed) at MXP - MXP is a pretty big focus city for Easyjet and EK can provide a lot of feed from east or west with a one stop connection to lots of secondary and seasonal destinations. What with the current short-haul EU carrier product as it is, especially in "premium" cabins, if you have a 1 stop european itinerary, then the last sector on U2 is not much different to BA/LH/LX etc.

A discussion for a different thread, though, I think :D

DL management referring to the "Arabian Peninsula" and mentioning 9/11 seems to have been a deliberately crafted message to play to the Fear Inc. crowd in the US and be a reference to "Al-Qaeda" and its so-called regional off-shoot "AQAP". I am just waiting for DL to make references to ISIS/ISIL/IS and go even further off the rails.

The US 3 are crying for Uncle Sam's intervention in the market. In other words, instead of competing the US 3 are crying for more governmental protectionism. It seems that the US3 are hooked to being assisted by the US government and that habit of these carriers isn't going to be kicked to the curb anytime soon.

Such crap (sorry, found no other words for that) from DL makes me to chose the ME3 carriers even more preferably than any carriers from the US.. just as a hint ;)

Just an afterthought, couldn't one or all three airlines sue that guy over defamation? I mean he blamed the need for restructuring on a criminal/terrorist act that has no link to them whatsoever. EY didn't even exist then!
Then there's the reference to subsidies being treated as crime money.

And what does 'categorically different' supposed to mean? A sneaky way to avoid saying 'not any different'?!

Interesting come back by Al Baker, who is usually the one on the offensive
http://www.arabianbusiness.com/akbar...nt-582608.html

I think the US president, and administration are more concerned about the UAE, and Qatar being part of the coalition partners of the willing in the fight against Daesh at the moment.

Boeing, and GE are also the ME3's trump card as well.

Lets see what Clark, and Hogan have to say on Quests show.

I see nothing wrong with what Anderson said.

The fact is that the only time in modern history the USA airlines received anything resembling gov't subsidies like what we allegedly see in the Middle East was after 9/11 when the US gov't prohibited them from flying due to the attack on America conducted by people from the Arabian peninsula. It would certainly be rich for any airline from that region to complain about those limited subsidies (which I believe were both direct -- cash payouts -- and indirect -- providing insurance when the commercial market would not). Indeed, I don't think any of the Middle East airlines ever have. It would be in mind-bogglingly bad taste.

Those subsidies were war time-related, unlike the purported Middle East airline subsidies, which are economic-development driven. Obviously a huge difference.

Instead, Emirates likes to talk about the USA bankruptcy laws -- which is a complete red herring because it doesn't involve gov't subsidies at all. In bankruptcy law, money is simply transferred from shareholders to creditors. The gov't doesn't help at all, unless you want to get into the tangential nitty gritty of pension guarantees and such.

Well, the fact is that your version of modern history doesn't line up with the facts when major US airlines have been provided subsidies and other government assistance before and well after 9/11 too. But given your version of modern history rests with a conclusion that excludes relevant facts about the US industry's kingpins, I can see why you may not take issue with what he said.

Also, let's keep in mind that the GCC 3 operate a more expensive/costly operation than they otherwise would have had if not for the US having broken up so much stuff in the Pottery Barn of SW Asia and Africa after 9/11.

Something along "don't feed the troll" would be the best answer :D

There's a surprise... :(