in their favor by using more than $50 billion in government subsidies to fuel their international expansion. As a result, the US3 alleges that the Middle Eastern carriers violated the OpenSkies agreements that govern air travel between the US and the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.
"The facts are those two countries, the UAE and Qatar have put subsidies into the three airlines, unlike anything we've ever seen before," American Airlines CEO Doug Parker told us."The result of that is those three carriers fly routes without any regard to profitability and that's a concern for those of us who do have to produce profits on our flying."Parker added,"that's an enormous threat to commercial aviation and the United States.
A few weeks after the Qatari government's deal with the Trump administration was announced, Italy's Meridiana Airlines was rebranded as Air Italy with new flights to the US was announced. Qatar Airways acquired a 49% stake in the financially challenged carrier several months earlier. "Those side letters were important, it gave the US government the comfort it needed to move forward, only to find out that Qatar had gone and acquired a certificate of some bankrupt Italian airline and it acquired 49% share but was clearly in control and was going to take its airplanes and put them into that airline and have them fly from Europe to the United States," Parker said.
"That didn't seem within the spirit of the agreement, it seems like an absolute violation of the intent of the agreement," the American Airlines CEO added."Yeah, we don't think that's right."
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