Please take a closer look at the few dozen posts over the last couple of weeks. ;)

Absolutely nothing and as pointed out numerous times, all the strategies they copied were based on huge amounts of money (from the taxpayer ;););) )

And this brings us back to my original post in this thread. Emirates, as well as any other state-owned airline, is based on huge amounts of money from the taxpayer aka state subsidies, which used to be the normal strategy by many many Governments around the world trying to establish its country as a vital part of the world trade.

Again, $10 million and a cute little A310 do not really cut it as nice as the story might sound. :cool:

Please post them again! I've followed this thread from the start and don't recall, and can't find, these posts either.

I have done, that's why I asked. All I've seen is *your* opinion, no quotes from anybody else.

Well, some of my opinions are based on projects at various airlines as well as constant interaction with people from the industry, so you might want to consider some of them as indirect quotes. I guess that the US3 did not quote my posts on FT when they came up with the same facts. @:-)

Again, you have to choose a side at the some point.

You can continue to believe the fairy tales or you can became a more educated human being by listening to what people with knowledge of the situation have to say. It is entirely up to you...

I do not have an agenda, I just care about how to make money flying aircraft, hence looked at what the NE3 are doing only to come to the conclusion that it is not viable financially looking at the ops. of the airlines we are talking about. If we take a look at the bigger picture, one might be able to draw different conclusions.

If you ask me, I consider the investment of the Dutch Government (17.8% of GDP in 1958) to be worthwhile, not only putting KLM on the map , but also the Netherlands, as one of the crossroads of world trade (again) after WWII.

Other countries, i.e. in Africa, invested comparable amounts...obviously without as much success.

If you really care about the subject, the Brookings Institution published lots of material about state aid in aviation, also long before people wanted to deregulate the industry. ;)

So, that's an essay basically saying you can't provide any quotes/facts. And throw in a couple of insults for good measure. Nice.

Obviously, you chose a side, not surprisingly given your role as an EK Ambassador... ;)

Once upon a time, there was a small sheikdom in the middle of nowhere angrily looking at another skeikdom, which received most of the money from technical stops en route to Asia... ;)

I don't think anyone disputes the fact that historically, Emirates, along with dozens of airlines (or perhaps, all airlines) around the world, have benefitted from government investment, either directly or indirectly - either through capital investment or creating a political and legal environment in which to thrive.

What we are talking about now is whether EK receives on-going cash support.

As I understand it, FD1971 believes there is no way that EK currently makes money from operations. He states that he bases this on his experience in the industry and having inside knowledge from colleagues (or perhaps ex-colleagues) who work/worked at the "NE3" - of yields and load factors for certain routes.

Essentially, the logical conclusion is that he believes that EK are lying through their teeth when it comes to their public statements and published accounts. That is, of course, a very strong claim to make and so other posters would be interested to see how, exactly - not through innuendo or opinion statements, but using verifiable data where possible, and where not, to explicitly state assumptions and justifications for their use - that claim is justified on the basis of public knowledge.

However, the problem for readers of this thread is that his posts combine some kernel of facts attached to a lot of innuendo and opinion without making clear delininations between the two, and with rather arcane (to casual readers) references to certain historical events or actors in the industry. It may be an attempt to convince readers of justifications for his authoritative tone due to his experience and knowledge, but this is a discussion board with all sorts of readers with different backgrounds and depths of knowledge on the subject and so the tone may come off differently. I think it would be helpful if instead of writing wryly composed leading sentences ending in smilies, to simply state the history instead. Post 1206 is an example of what I mean ("two sheikdoms").

Some posters may be reminded of the colleague at work who has the air that he/she knows all the answers but isn't actually going to help out with the problem at hand, or the person at university who states his opinion as fact and implies that you are an idiot for not knowing what he knows and how he comes to his opinions, but then never states where he bases his information on clearly and in a matter-of-fact way. Eventually I think, one has to come up with the goods, as it were, instead of preserving the self-image of knowing more than others and letting others make fools of themselves - unless of course the intention is not to contribute to the discussion at all and simply to find some sort of amusement and enjoyment in not helping others out by sharing one's experiences and knowledge.

In the spirit of Flyertalk, a discussion board, I think it doesn't do any of us any good to have an unequal and unstated of set of background assumptions, especially when other posters have come forward with public and current independent data that challenge conclusions which are still based hidden background.

For instance, in the immediate matter - I believe there were a few posts ago stating that years ago, colleagues in Germany allowed FD1971 to see yield and load factor information for some routes in that country and that forms the basis of the opinion that EK can't make money now from ops globally. It would be useful to state around what time and what routes he had this information for, to see if that is now consistent with current EK global load factors (as have been linked before in this thread) and fare information.

Essentially - has the world moved on from when these opinions were formed and the economic situation different? How were the opinions formed in the first place and do those initial assumptions still hold true?

I would argue that current loads, fares, fuel prices and aircraft types speak for themselves...

+1. It would be very useful if both FD and the OP cited references that we could validate ourselves. Or, in cases where references are based on personal conversations with key players, just give us a bit of background on the "what", "who", "circumstances", etc.

I'll be the first to admit that I don't have enough information to make any definitive conclusions on this matter. That having been said, I won't put any credence into comments like "it's impossible for EK to make money" unless they are supported by sources that I can trust (e.g. HBR = good, random Twitter guy = bad). I'd like to think that it's impossible to receive a college degree without mastering this basic concept (my history grades jumped from Cs to As as soon as I figured it out... in high school!).

I don't know one way or the other, but nothing you've posted seems particularly credible. Neither you or the OP have posted anything other than your own opinions. Show me something to back it up, and I'll listen :)

The more credible posters in this thread have posted facts, or at least shown their workings.

The point is that the owner (government) can contribute equity and provide direct or indirect subsidy. Noone has yet to definitively quantify the subsidy portion rather just continually stating that because it is government owned they are receiving subsidies. Problem is Dubai would rapidly run out of money if this were true. Emirates makes up around 25% of their GDP there is minimal capacity to sustain losses from something representing this much of the GDP without the economy going bust.

Aha, an actual data point provided! Do you have a source for this one (i.e. that the Dutch Gov't's spending on subsidies for KLM in 1958 were equal to 17.8% of Dutch GDP in that year)?

and yet, completely irrelevant to the argument at hand, which is Emirates. I know, I know. There has been so little factual information provided by those on the "Yes, it is a scam" crowd that we will grasp at anything, but I thought it worthwhile to bring it back to EK and the present.

It's mostly just hearsay.

Hearsay and creative spin-doctoring are the parent of many things. The US3's propaganda (read: "report") is but the offspring.

U.S. Travel Association and the U.S. Congressional Research Service have different takes on the matter than what the US3's lobbyists and their favorite harpies want:

http://thehill.com/policy/transporta...ight-subsidies

Here is the Congressional Research Service report.

Will these hypocrites persist with this transparently self-serving lobbying campaign?