Re: CEO di American Airlines contro Air Italy
Inviato: gio 06 giu 2019, 20:51:55
Non verranno presi aerei usati, ma nuovi. L’usato può essere solo temporaneo.
Notizie su Malpensa, Linate, Orio al Serio, Montichiari
http://www.mxpairport.it/forum/
Quoto tutto.milmxp ha scritto:Penso che al di là di quello che succede si tenda a parlare male di Air Italy perché rischia (dico rischia perché nulla è scontato in questa operazione) di scardinare l'equilibrio che si è realizzato nei 10 anni dal dehub:
- Malpensa castrata o quasi, ridotta ad aeroporto ptp/low cost; nessuno si ricorda di post del tipo 'Malpensa farà la fine del Mirabel'? Ora MXP sta risorgendo dalle sue ceneri (questo a prescindere da Air Italy);
- Aeroporti del Nord Italia che temono di essere messi in ombra per colpa di MXP (vedasi piagnistei nelle zone di Torino);
- Fiumicino hubbe naturale per eccellenza con Alitalia hubbe carrier.
Al momento siamo molto lontani dall'essere anche un piccolo hub affermato, ma se andasse in porto... ne vedremo delle belle.
Ad esempio proprio oggi su altri lidi si è menzionato di un volo da Linate con 23 passeggeri, perché nessuna pagina fa scandalo, mentre con Air Italy per voli da 30 pax lo si fa?
Questa winter in IG avevano frequenze ridotte all'osso, easyJet in alcuni giorni della settimana faceva decollare 5 aerei, ripeto 5, la mattina con una base di una ventina di aerei. Perché non si è detto nulla?
Nessuno vuole mettere la testa sotto la sabbia, perché di cose che non vanno ce ne sono, ma a mio avviso bisogna essere intellettualmente disonesti per pretendere che i piani di sviluppo si mantengano tali dopo tutto il finimondo che è successo per cause esterne.
Specie quando Air Italy non sta chiedendo soldi a nessuno che non sia i suoi azionisti, a differenza di qualche altra compagnia che tutti amano.
My two cents.
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The Italian carrier has recently been object of scrutiny by some of the major carriers in the U.S. due to its ownership structure. Qatar Airways owns a 49 percent stake in Air Italy and the CEOs of American Airlines, Delta Air Lines and United Airlines bought an advertisement in the New York Times last April to encourage President Trump to investigate Air Italy’s commercial strategy. It was being suggested that Qatar Airways is using its minority-owned subsidiary as a trojan horse to penetrate the lucrative Europe-U.S. transatlantic market.
This initiative by the three biggest carriers in the U.S. was closely followed by a rebuttal letter to U.S. Secretaries of State and Department of Transportation Mike Pompeo and Elaine Chao, signed by the CEOs of JetBlue and FedEx to “set the record straight” in front of the “misinformation campaign” by their colleagues.
This new agreement signed by Alaska Airlines with Air Italy can be interpreted as a decision by the Seattle-based carrier to side with JetBlue and FedEx in this dispute and therefore consider Air Italy as a fair competitor in the marketplace and not as a “massively subsidized airlines that ignores economic realities” as other airlines claim it to be.
The two sides reaffirmed their ongoing commitment to further deepening ties between the two countries and the importance of the U.S.-UAE economic relationship in promoting regional prosperity and stability.
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The two sides acknowledged that bilateral trade in goods reached close to $25 billion in 2018, with almost 75 percent of this sum (circa 19 miliardi di dollari! NdR) constituting U.S. exports to the UAE, the United States fourth largest trade surplus globally. It was also recognized that the United States is one of the UAEs most important global economic partners and that for over a decade the UAE has been the United States largest Middle East and North African trading partner.
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Delegations from the two countries also met to discuss civil aviation matters, during which both governments reaffirmed their strong support for the United States United Arab Emirates Air Transport Agreement (ATA) of March 11, 2002, and the understandings in the May 11, 2018, Record of Discussion between the governments of the United States and the United Arab Emirates. That Record of Discussion reinforced the principle of a fair and equal opportunity to compete in providing international air transportation governed by the ATA. They underscored the shared and ongoing commitment of the United States and the United Arab Emirates to fully maintain all aspects of their Open Skies relationship established by the ATA.
La chiosa dell'articolo è particolarmente illuminante. Finora le US3 non hanno compiuto il passo formale per contestare le ME3, probabilmente perché non sono sicure di vincere. Meglio fare lobbying e sperare che qualche politico a libro paga faccia il lavoro sporco necessario. Un giudice potrebbe dare ragione agli arabi e a quel punto non ci sarebbe modo ri recuperare il danno subito.malpensante ha scritto:US Big 3 glosses over UAE Open Skies outcome
Jun 25, 2019 by Karen Walker in ATW Editor's Blog
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The biggest point of all, however, is not the scrap over Fifth Freedom interpretations. American, Delta and United went into this long campaign determined to clip the wings of the Gulf carriers by demonstrating that they had violated the fair-and-equal opportunity to compete principle of open skies. Had the US carriers demonstrated this beyond the circle of their own employees and labor groups, the two Open Skies agreements might have been torn up. Most tellingly, the US carriers have never acted on their beliefs by filing an International Air Transportation Fair Competitive Practices Act complaint. Meanwhile, their share of the transatlantic market within antitrust immunized alliances (American with British Airways, Delta United with Lufthansa and the pending expanded Delta-Air France-KLM-Virgin Atlantic joint venture) has grown to the point where they dominate the market and dictate its fares.
The three largest U.S. carriers say Air Italy competes unfairly. But it is highly unlikely the airline is breaking any U.S. or EU laws. If the U.S. airlines want to break Air Italy, they’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way — through ruthless competition.
— Brian Sumers
Air Italy, the European airline 49 percent owned by Qatar Airways, continues to push back against accusations by the three major U.S. carriers that it is “cheating” by adding new flights from its Milan hub to several U.S. cities.
“I would love to know how we are cheating,” Rossen Dimitrov, Air Italy’s chief operating officer, said in an interview. “We are a fully European airline, and we meet all the regulations and requirements of the EU. We have a majority shareholder which is European.”
This is the latest in the war of words between the trade group representing American Airlines, Delta Air Lines and United Airlines, and the largest Gulf carriers, Qatar, Emirates, and Etihad Airways. The group, the Partnership for Open & Fair Skies, long has complained about Gulf carriers, arguing they are unfairly subsidized by their governments, leaving the U.S. airlines unable to compete effectively.
Historically, it has two issues. First, it objected to flights the carriers launched from their home hubs to U.S. cities, saying the airlines dumped more capacity than the market could reasonably support. Second, it opposed Gulf carrier flights from Europe to the United States, such as Emirates’ Milan-New York service, which the airlines are permitted to operate under the Open Skies agreements their governments signed with the United States.
Those concerns are less of a problem now than a couple of years ago. The Gulf carriers have been retrenching, and they’re no longer adding U.S routes, whether from their home hubs or from Europe.
More recently, the trade group has found a new enemy — Air Italy. It’s an airline that didn’t exist until last year, when Qatar Airways bought nearly half of a short-haul Italian airline called Meridiana, and renamed it.
The airline has changed its strategy and has been growing quickly since. This summer it is flying from Milan to Los Angeles, San Francisco, Miami, and New York, mostly with airplanes leased from Qatar.
The three major U.S. carriers have questioned Qatar’s motivations, asking the U.S. State Department to look into whether Qatar’s investment is appropriate.
“With respect to Meridana Airlines, it is clear that that airline could not be driving the growth and funding the losses it is clearly having if there wasn’t a strong government entity behind the scenes funding that,” Delta CEO Ed Bastian told reporters earlier this month in Seoul. “The questions are appropriate.”
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said he takes the Air Italy threat seriously, but that doesn’t mean the government will take action.
No Legal Standing
On a legal basis, the larger U.S. carriers likely don’t have much of an argument.
Air Italy is a European-registered airline, and the majority of it is owned by a European shareholders. Just as Delta can own 49 percent of Virgin Atlantic and 10 percent of Air France-KLM, Qatar can own 49 percent of Air Italy.
“What are we doing different than Delta is doing with Virgin and everyone else?” Dimitrov said .”If we call an investment cheating, then we need to redefine the definition of investment.”
Other U.S. interests agree. Earlier this year, the CEOs of FedEx, JetBlue, and Atlas Air wrote to Pompeo, asking him not to take action against Air Italy or Qatar. They noted the Italian Civil Aviation Authority and the European Commission already ruled Air Italy is a European airline, and warned other countries could retaliate if the United States pulls Air Italy’s traffic rights.
“Should the U.S. breach the U.S.-Qatar agreement by restricting Qatar Airways’ rights into the U.S., or the U.S.-EU agreement by restricting Air Italy flights, we can expect to see a rapid unraveling of hard-fought aviation rights around the world when other governments take similar action to shield their state-owned airlines from competition,” they said. “Undoubtedly, closing access to global markets will be a punishment that brings higher prices and fewer choices for American travelers, consumers, and shippers.”
Alaska Airlines did not sign the letter, but it has also tacitly endorsed Air Italy. Earlier this month, it agreed to an interline relationship with Air Italy that will allow customers from both airlines to connect to the other’s flights. The relationship could boost Air Italy’s revenues in San Francisco and Los Angeles, as it will now have access to new customers.
In the future, Dimitrov said, it is possible the two carriers might form a closer codeshare relationship.
Not a Major Threat
The major U.S. airlines may never persuade regulators to shut down Air Italy, but they can pressure it in other ways.
Most obvious is price. Savvy travelers may have noticed an unusual number of fare sales to Milan recently, such as the $582 price offered by United Airlines from Los Angeles for fall travel. A global airline like United can afford to sell prices so cheaply to put pressure on a competitor.
There are other levers, too. To make a route work, airlines generally need connecting passengers, so the Miami flight could pull passengers not just from South Florida, but from the entire Southeast. But with the exception of Alaska, which does not fly to Miami, Air Italy does not have much feed in the United States
Dimitrov said Air Italy has reached out to the three major carriers about an interline relationship. It is not unprecedented for an airline to have such a relationship with a fierce competitor. But in this case, not surprisingly, none has agreed.
“I would love to have a long term relationship with any of them, or all of them,” he said.
There is also the matter of reliability and meeting customer expectations. In an odd move, Air Italy announced a new Chicago route late last year, and began selling tickets for it, only to cancel it a couple of months later. Instead of starting it in spring 2019, the airline said, it will begin in 2020. Dimitrov blamed it on an “aircraft delivery issue.”
https://www.ft.com/content/82a82f8c-99c ... pe=nongiftA small Italian airline has become the latest source of tension in the increasingly frayed relationship between the EU and the Trump administration, after officials in Brussels warned Washington not to stop Air Italy flying in and out of the US.
Large US airlines have been lobbying the US government to prevent the Italian carrier flying what they see as unfairly-subsidised routes, which they say are being underwritten by Air Italy’s Qatari owners and undercut their own services.
The European Commission has written to the US state department warning that any action against Air Italy would constitute a violation of the US-EU Air Transport Agreement.
In the letter, seen by the Financial Times, Henrik Hololei, the director-general for transport at the Commission, warned Manisha Singh, assistant secretary at the state department, that Europe would take “all necessary steps” to defend its rights.
Mr Hololei said: “Any measure to curtail or end the rights of Air Italy to serve the US would constitute a clear and serious violation of the ATA. Such action would be unprecedented and would put into question the most fundamental principles under which our aviation relations have so successfully developed over more than 10 years.”
Mr Hololei’s strongly-worded warning comes as the Trump administration weighs whether to take action against either Air Italy or Qatar Airways, which owns 49 per cent of the Italian airline’s shares.
The three largest US airlines — American Airlines, United Airlines and Delta — argue the Italian company would not have been able to expand into the US without the help of its Qatari shareholder, which they say is itself subsidised by the Qatari government.
Scott Reed, managing partner for the Partnership for Open & Fair Skies, which represents the three airlines, said on Friday: “Qatar Airways’ actions regarding Air Italy are designed to serve as a loophole to undermine last year’s agreement with the Trump administration.”
Air Italy is now running services from Milan to New York, Miami, San Francisco and Los Angeles, which the US companies argue violates an agreement signed last year by the US and Qatar to adhere to “market consistent conditions as far as possible”.
They have garnered support in their efforts from Peter Navarro, an adviser to US President Donald Trump and a noted trade hawk, as well as senior members of Congress.
But people close to the situation say Mr Navarro is being resisted by some in the state department, who worry that taking action against Qatar Airways risks alienating a potential ally in the Gulf at a time when tensions are escalating with Iran.
A state department spokesman said it was “committed to levelling the playing field and ensuring American companies have the opportunity to succeed globally. We also seek to maintain the Open Skies framework of US international aviation policy. Our goal is to provide beneficial results for as many US stakeholders as possible, and we believe diplomacy is delivering results.”
The US airlines are continuing to lobby heavily, though they say they want the administration to take action against Qatar Airways and not necessarily Air Italy itself.
“Qatar is responsible for these massive government subsidies and Qatar needs to be held accountable,” said Mr Reed.
Qatar Airways denies the claims against it. Earlier this year, Akbar Al Baker, the company’s chief executive, told the Financial Times the claims were “entirely off base” and that US-Qatari agreements “contain no mention of any kind, let alone prohibition, of cross-border airline investments”.
Avrebbero sicuramente la peggio, credo che il traffico atlantico sia prevalentemente originato lato UE, inoltre di solito le aziende americane abbaiano quando sono "in difficoltà" (non assoluta, ma anche semplicemente relativa rispetto alla concorrenza).KittyHawk ha scritto:Son curioso di sapere se l'iniziativa di Hololei è spontanea o è stata suggerita. In entrambi i casi si iniziano a mettere dei paletti e nel caso di una guerra commerciale USA-UE non sarei tanto sicuro che le US3 partano da una posizione di vantaggio.
Mi associoMauz® ha scritto:Quanto godo a vedere le porte in faccia che si stanno prendendo le US3!