US airlines focused on self-interest says Emirates
Emirates airline has responded to a report by the Partnership for Open and Fair Skies saying the latest data demonstrates how the big three US airlines are only concerned with their narrow interests, at the expense of consumers and the broader economic interest.
The Partnership for Open and Fair Skies, an organization backed by Delta Air, United Airlines and American Airlines reported a decline in international bookings in Orlando, San Francisco and Chicago after Gulf carriers launched new services.
"At Orlando for instance, overall flight bookings to the Middle East, West Asia and Southeast Asia during September to December 2015 [the regions and time period cited by the partnership], compared with the same period in 2014 before Emirates' entry into the market, increased 74% from an average of 232 to 409 bookings per day," said an Emirates spokesperson in an email statement to Khaleej Times.
The Partnership for Open and Fair Skies report says passenger bookings for international itineraries on US carriers and their joint venture partners declined an average of 13.3% in Orlando, 13.1% in San Francisco and 8.8% in Chicago.
The Dubai-based airline said the data totally disregards the fact that overall bookings grew with the start of Gulf carrier services into US cities - including Orlando, San Francisco and Chicago.
"The billions of dollars in 2015 earned by the big US airlines alone proves that they have absolutely no appetite to compete internationally while they brazenly take advantage of US domestic customers to bolster their finances and choose not to use these profits to invest in new international services that US customers so desperately crave," StrategicAero Research chief analyst Saj Ahmad told Khaleej Times.
Earlier this month, Delta Air reported a record-breaking fourth-quarter net profit of $1.45 billion and historic full-year profit of $5.9 billion.
United Airlines declared fourth-quarter profit at $934 million and full year at $4.5 billion for 2015.
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American Airlines Group announced fourth-quarter profit at $3.3 billion and its full-year net profit reached $7.6 billion in 2015.
Emirates says: "Contrary to the partnership's allegations that Emirates is 'costing American jobs', we have helped create and support US jobs through our flight services and our investment in US aerospace products.
Aviation experts Campbell-Hill Aviation Group have analysed the US jobs effect of Emirates' flights to the United States, and found that Emirates supports 3,975 US jobs per daily roundtrip service."
A senior aviation analyst also said that it is evident that while on the one hand, the US big three airlines make large profits borne out of their domestic market dominance, a market that no Middle East airline has access to, that they then complain that they are hurt by Gulf airline expansion in the US.
Emirates added: "It is astounding how the big three relentlessly churn out misleading data to support their pleas for protection against competition, completely disregarding consumer choice and the broader economy."