GUWonder

The North America and European OECD countries' governments have made sure that there is no level playing field. The US, Canada and EU have granted the TATL-flying big home-boys of the industry so many waivers and favors that "more competition is necessarily better".

AA_EXP09

From what I have seen LG and Samsung (at least for HK base) are made in Korea (it says on the box and mobile hone, though the batteries and charging cords are often assembled in China.)
I am sure that this is even more advantageous for the North American market as Canada and America have FTAs with South Korea.
HTC is made in Taiwan (again, from the box.)
(I cannot comment on the Japanese as I have not used a Japanese mobile in years.)

WindowSeat123

Yeah, I agree with that. Leaving aside questions of level playing field or subsidies for the moment, at the end of the day, I just wanted to be treated well, if that means flying on a government-owned carrier, so be it.

WindowSeat123

Well I still disagree with you on the relevance part. Plane, airline, same principle.

However, let's get back to the main point, you are right about patriotism thing. Personally, I think companies who wave the patriotism flag to sell their products can't compete on its inherent quality. That is a warning sign for me to stay away.

cbn42

Like what? Other than the ability to fly domestically, I don't think the US government favors its hometown airlines over foreign competitors in any way. Arguably, they favor foreign airlines through Ex-Im. I'm not as familiar with Canada and EU.

GUWonder

Like the ATIs granted for various airline JVs. Collusion like that by other airlines not ATIed but flying to/from the U.S. and EU would be legally actionable in the US and EU.

Like the "Fly America" act stuff, even for most international flights flown by USG employees.

There is more, but I'm not about to write a treatise on this stuff.

cbn42

ATIs are usually for one domestic and one foreign airline. EK and QR have just as much ability to enter into a JV as BA or IB.

Fly America only impacts US government employees/contractors, who are a drop in the bucket compared to the total number of travelers. Even then, they can fly on a foreign carrier in many cases.

GUWonder

And yet the ATIs granted to the US majors for the TATL international JVs are for more than "one domestic and one foreign airline" -- it's more like "one or two US airlines and two or more European airlines".

If two or three of the GCC 3 wanted to collude on serving the U.S. market, they would have to seek out US legal approval to do that and/or merge. The approval is not guaranteed to be granted. Even if granted or not, the playing field is already slanted by the USG in favor of the US and EU airlines and unlikely to be fully level given the lobbying clout of the US airline industry.

Still a governmental favor for US airlines by the US Government. The USG is one of the biggest customers of airline travel services in the world. Is there even any bigger single customer of TATL airline tickets in the world than the USG?

edgewood49

And it really doesn't apply all that much many US employees fly other than US carriers abroad

GUWonder

The USG has liberalized the rules such that more foreign carriers can be used than before, but the preference in favor of US airlines (and the US airlines' US/EU-assisted cartel brethren) applies to most ticket purchases by the USG for travel to/from the U.S.

And the USG still frustrates foreign airlines from owning and controlling airlines in the US, which in turn undermines the ability of such foreign airlines to benefit from the US government's huge volume of business around the world.

The CRAF, various indemnities and other financial assistance granted by the USG to US airlines, and the bankruptcy code in the US have also stacked the field in favor of the U.S. airlines.

rwoman

The only catch (for flights to/from the USA) is it has be a US carrier flight # even if operated by a non-US flagged carrier.

GUWonder

A US airline codeshare is not required for all such flights on all such tickets. It may depend on from where you are flying, but for most that (with codeshares) is how they will see it when a foreign carrier is used.

Money paid for tickets with US codeshares -- and foreign carriers can't get US airline codeshares unless the USG pre-approves the codeshares -- have the flight coupons go into settlement such that the US carrier doesn't financially benefit? Come on, I think we all know the answer to that.

The US majors' government relations folk and their other lobbyists have a history of handing out elite status and/or other benefits around DC for a reason of self-interest.

rwoman

When on official travel, we're confined to the GSA city pairs... For example, if I'm flying LON-NAP, the carrier does not matter, but LON-USA, it'd need to be a codeshare or flown by a US-flagged carrier. I've had colleagues run into reimbursement problems when they booked the (cheaper) non-US flagged flight #'s. Totally silly.

Sixth Freedom

Let's not of course forget that the US majors treat their middle east colleagues in a completely unprofessional manner.

i) when QR operated DOH<>IAD under a UA code, UA just did not care and filed fares far below the economic level - even their highest J fare was lower than QR's lowest J fare and we had to map all their fares to the lowest available inventory class

ii) when UA considered that the codeshare with QR was up they fraudulently booked for their FFP members hundreds if not thousands of business class seats under the redemption fare class to alleviate their mileage liabilities, knowing that QR was unlikely to catch them.

edgewood49

Petty