Qatar Airways boss slams US airlines on subsidy allegations

Putting up a united front with Emirates and Etihad, Qatar Airways Chief Akbar Al Baker slammed the government subsidy allegations in an ongoing spat with US carriers.

Speaking at the Arabian Travel Market, Al Baker said Delta Air Lines CEO Richard Anderson was ‘misleading the US government with false claims’.

Al Baker, who is expected to address these allegations to the US government on May 13 in response to the 55-page dossier put forth by Delta, American and United, further clarified that Qatar Airways’ announcement to launch three new routes to the US in 2016 was not in retaliation to these allegations.

The carrier announced it will be launching services to Los Angeles, Boston and Atlanta in 2016; Atlanta is also the home base for Delta Air Lines.

“Open the books and confront”

As Al Baker prepares to address the allegations, he stated they were “disappointed”.

He added: “I am going to address the US government officials in Washington DC next week. But after that, I am going to open the books and confront them [carriers].

“But I want to say in clear terms, Mr Anderson is not a patriot of his country. Because what he is doing is stifling the interest of the travelling public in the United States. He is very single-handedly looking at himself.”

Earlier this week, Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, Chairman and Chief Executive, Emirates Airline and Group, stated the carrier would take its time to effectively respond to the allegations put forth by the US airlines.

The sentiment was echoed by Emirates President Tim Clark who stated the airline would “respond in its own time and when we are ready. There is nothing in the bilateral air services agreement that requires us to prescribe to timelines.”

Quiz Al Baker about the 60-day limit set by the US carriers to respond to the allegations, and he said: “We will take our time. As they did their research over two years [to make the report], we need to two years to research over their drawbacks.

“Emirates and Etihad are my competitors but at the same time these are airlines of the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) and it’s the right of the GCC to respond to these unfounded allegations, lies against our carriers.”

“I will go to the US government in a very precise, direct way to show them the misleading information that has been presented to them.”

US expansion plans

On Monday, Qatar Airways announced the next phase of its US route development with the introduction of three new passenger routes to Los Angeles, Boston and Atlanta.

With these new destinations, Qatar Airways will offer daily nonstop services to 10 US cities; the carrier also announced its existing New York JFK daily service would become double-daily from  March 2016.

Sheikh Ahmed also confirmed that several American cities have asked Emirates to launch routes connecting them with its hub in Dubai, stating that an announcement would come soon.

However, Al Baker was clear in stating the US expansion plan has always been on the cards, and not a sign of retaliation.

“We’ve always said we would go to these destinations and are only announcing it as part of our expansion plan,” said Baker.

“We’ve been operating into the US well within our bilateral air services agreement. We don’t talk about reprisals. We’re a mature airline. We’re just doing our expansion according to the plans we laid down in the past.”

Qatar, similar to UAE, shares an Open Skies agreement with the US. Asked whether the ongoing spat could affect this agreement in the future, and Al Baker said: “I don’t think this will happen because the government of the United States are wise enough to realise that Open Skies is in the interests of passengers and the government – Open Skies was invented by the United States, so I don’t they will be in a position to get away from this.”

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