Originally Posted by
RJSAviator76
Gloopy, I travel between the Gulf and the U.S. when going home on leave and flights are always packed with Indians, Asians and Africans. Also, lots of American contractors.
While there is some O&D demand on those routes, the bulk of it are pax transferring to all points everywhere from there. IOW many on those packed planes aren't just going to the city of first landing. They are going to places already served by US airlines and their current partners. See below.
What gets me is seeing American code on a QR or EY flight... Again, why not AA B-777 to DOH or AUH and then transfer these pax to metal operated by QR and EY?
Because that would just feed ME3's poaching of our industry because those connections are in many cases siphoned off of routes we or our existing partners already do (or used to do).
And if there's no demand or money to be made doing this flying, why get all bent out of shape about others doing it?
I'm all in favor of a fair and balanced open skies agreement with the ME3. We can split the O&D demand for flights per day from our country to their country. Currently that's about 2 flights a day for us, so 2 flights a day for them is fair. If there is more demand than that, we can both share in it equally. But we're under no legal, moral or pseudo subsidized competitive obligation to divert our existing traffic flow away from us and onto the ME3 airlines, even if they are trying to bribe us with our own money to do it.
And under no circumstances should ME3 be allowed to buy into open skies agreements from other countries. That's just insane for us to allow that.