Qatar Airways CEO Akbar Al Baker said he sees no point in remaining in the oneworld airline alliance if the airline that invited him in is going to block his business. Al Baker, speaking at the IATA annual meeting in Miami last week, said fellow member American Airlines Group is “impeding our growth.”
The feud between the three American legacy carriers – American, Delta and United Airlines – and the three big Persian Gulf carriers is a result of the U.S. carriers’ accusation that Qatar, Emirates and Etihad Airways benefitted from more than $40 billion in government subsidies. The oneworld alliance, which has 15 member airlines, was created to share resources to assist international travelers. Delta and United are not members, nor are Emirates and Etihad.
Al Baker said American Airlines wasn’t providing information on its bookings to allow the transfer of passengers, adding that American was blocking terminal access at JFK for an A350 aircraft that Qatar plans to fly into the airport, according to the Wall Street Journal. An American Airlines spokesperson said the terminal access was unrelated to the dispute over U.S.-Middle East open skies agreements, but rather an issue of gate space at JFK.
“Any rollback of liberal market access and open skies policies reverberate across the whole world and will lead to retaliatory protectionism,” Al Baker said. American Airlines CEO Doug Parker said he and Al Baker chatted amicably at the event. “Our dispute is not with any of those three airlines; we are just trying to get the U.S. government to enforce its trade policies,” Parker said.