Qatar, Etihad take aim at Germany
Never one to hold back, Qatar Airways chief executive Akbar Al Baker has told a German newspaper that he would reconsider ordering Airbus aircraft if Qatar could not obtain landing rights – or slots – at European airports.
"If they (European airport slots) are limited further, we will stop buying European aircraft. We have 186 orders at Airbus. What impact would that have on German jobs?" Al Baker said in an interview.
Qatar and other Middle East airlines have complained that European governments were seeking to restrict fair competition by giving airlines based closer to home preference when awarding airport slots.
German flag-carrier Lufthansa, which has been at loggerheads with Gulf airlines over alleged subsidies and state backing, walked away from a planned codeshare agreement with Etihad in 2011, the Abu Dhabi carrier’s CEO has revealed.
"Twice they shook hands with me and then they reneged," Etihad president and CEO James Hogan told Arabian Business.
"The former CEO of Lufthansa [Christoph Franz] had agreed for Etihad to move into a codeshare.
"At a supervisory board level they decided not to support him and so they didn’t go forward. That’s what prompted us to work with Air Berlin," Hogan said.
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