Is Delta and Skyteam so in need of a ME carrier that they would accept this?


Delta Partnership May Cause Travel Headaches For Non-Muslims

 

It's amazing the completely incorrect hatchet jobs that come out against corporate citizens. First, the misleading military bag piece, now this.

Passengers who fly any international carrier – on SkyTeam or another alliance – must meet the requirements to gain a visa entry into Saudi Arabia.

From Delta:

In January, SkyTeam announced that Saudi Arabian Airlines would join the alliance in 2012. Recently, World Net Daily or wnd.com inaccurately reported that Delta discriminates and has adopted a “no Jew” policy. These false rumors have spread throughout many social media and traditional news outlets.

“Delta Air Lines does not discriminate nor do we condone discrimination against any of our customers in regards to age, race, nationality, religion, or gender,” Delta said in a statement Friday. “Delta does not operate service to Saudi Arabia and does not codeshare with any airline on flights to that country. Delta does not intend to codeshare or share reciprocal benefits, such as frequent flier benefits, with Saudi Arabian Airlines, which we have confirmed with SkyTeam, an Amsterdam-based 14-member global airline alliance.

“Delta’s only agreement with Saudi Arabian Airlines is a standard industry interline agreement, which allows passengers to book tickets on multiple carriers, similar to the standard interline agreements American Airlines, US Airways and Alaska Airlines have with Saudi Arabian Airlines,” the statement said. “All of the three global airline alliances – Star, which includes United Airlines; oneworld, which includes American Airlines, and SkyTeam, which includes Delta – have members that fly to Saudi Arabia and are subject to that country’s rules governing entry.”

Saudi Arabian Airlines follows the same government-created visa rules that any carrier serving Saudi Arabia must. That includes the nearly a dozen carriers who are members of other airline alliances that fly to the Middle Eastern country every day.

Passengers who fly any international carrier – on SkyTeam or another alliance – must meet the requirements to gain a visa entry into Saudi Arabia.

 

slowplay,

I get what you're saying. Still, why have them in SkyTeam? It's akin to having SAA join an alliance in the days of Apartheid.

 

One of my FB friends was raising hell about this and wants a boycott of DAL.

 

You mean you're using a site that was a stolen idea (settled for stock worth $60 million)? Aren't you going to boycott that site?

Ask your friend how El Al treats passengers from Saudi Arabia that enter Israel...

 

Except Israel will actually allow them in. Just after several hours of questioning.

 

Of course. But just make sure you tell him he also has to boycott American, Us Air and Alaska as they too have code share agreements with Saudi Arabian Airlines.

 

Funny how the corrections were about half the article, here's one that caught my eye:

 

There was one website yesterday that went from "I'm not saying I'm ready to call for a boycott on Delta now but I'm about there!"

To "A reader just pointed out that Delta flies to Tel-Aviv?!"

To today: I apologize for singling out Delta, turns out that all three alliances...

 

Doesn't DL also code share with El Al, and also fly to Israel itself? So by boycotting them your friend is committing anti-Semitism by his/her own logical standards.

Also, does Israel easily grant entry to any citizen of Saudi Arabia who wants to visit? If not is that also discrimination? Should all code shares for all airlines be subject to this same asinine boycott standard? If a nation doesn't allow gay marriage, is an airline that code shares with them homophobic? What about a code share with an airline in a country that slashes and burns mass quantities of irreplaceable rainforest so their beef is 2 cents a pound cheaper? Are all participating code shares anti-environment? Airlines in countries that skin millions of animals alive because they claim it costs too much to kill them first? Airlines from countries that wipe out millions of sharks each year and throw them live and finless back into the ocean to die just because they believe their fins possess fairy tale magician libido secret powers? Are those pro animal cruelty airlines? Airlines in countries that are pro abortion? Airlines in countries that are pro choice? Will all airlines in all countries with large scale human rights issues be held accountable, all of the time, or only some airlines some of the time will be held accountable to the populist cries for boycotts?