Originally Posted by
Whip Whitaker
Al Baker is the the head of Qatar Airways, not EK. I don't have enough knowledge about Qatar to comment on their passport policies.
My apologies again, you are correct. Here is the article in question:
The truth about the luxury of Qatar Airways | Nyheter | Expressen
It's true that I sometimes make the mistake of lumping these state-championed, open-skies-violating airlines together, without regards to varying degrees of abuse, or without drawing large distinctions between the way one might treat women poorly, or another might treat them worse.
I'm not trying to get an education on the subtleties of ME airlines, I just make distinctions between airlines that cheat, and airlines that don't.
I'll stipulate to the appearance that, on the surface, Emirates cheats less than the others. Maybe they're upset that their neighbors are getting in on the action, and getting a bit greedy? Maybe Emirates developed their cheating strategy to be borderline, but not so obvious as to draw outside scrutiny too early, and maybe the other guys jumped in too fast, too obvious, and with too much funding, and ruined the whole game for them? When you compare the charges, it seems like there are far less demonstrated subsidies for Emirates than the others.
Which one of these was first, anyway?