Al Baker minaccia di uscire da Oneworld


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​Frustrated Al Baker threatens Qatar Oneworld withdrawal

Qatar Airways will pull out of the Oneworld alliance if certain partner airlines continue with unfounded accusations and blocking tactics, warns group chief executive Akbar Al Baker.
“This whole shenanigan has to stop, it has gone too far,” Al Baker tells FlightGobal. “If Qatar Airways leaves Oneworld it will send a very wrong message to the world about alliances.”
Oneworld chief executive Rob Gurney has asked for the opportunity to try to resolve the situation, Al Baker says. “I will wait for him to come back before deciding what to do.”
Al Baker’s growing frustration is with Oneworld members American Airlinesand Qantas, who he believes are not behaving how fellow alliance partners should, he says.
“The whole idea behind an alliance is to work together to support each other like a family. But I don’t think that is any more the spirit of the alliance, especially since American Airlines is continuously targeting Qatar Airways, slandering Qatar Airways, giving misinformation to the US government about Qatar Airways. And now it is targeting our investment in Air Italy at very high level government interaction, claiming that we are cheating on the open-skies agreement that we signed with the US government.”
Asked abut the situation a spokesperson for the US carrier says: “American is a founding member of Oneworld and we hope the alliance’s membership remains intact."
Al Baker is also unhappy with Qantas’s behaviour, which has an extensive tie-up with Gulf rival Emirates while its relationship with Qatar is “trivial”, he says. “And it is blocking us getting rights into Australia. So what is the point of us being in this alliance if it is only in the interest of a few and the interest of the rest is compromised?”
Regarding claims that Qatar Airways is not complying with the terms of the open-skies agreement signed by US and Qatari governments in January which prevents fifth-freedom flights, Al Baker says the airline is “very satisfied” with the pact and “has not violated” it.
Qatar Airways holds a 49% stake in Air Italy (the former Meridiana) but Al Baker is adamant that there is no intention to use the airline and its Milan Malpensa hub for fifth-freedom flights.
“Qatar Airways does not codeshare with Air Italy beyond Milan, we do not transfer passengers beyond Milan and we have no intention of doing it in the future,” he says.
“Air Italy is just a strategic investment similar to the investment we have with IAG. And [AA] is a JV (joint-venture) partner of IAG without realising typically that we own 21% of their JV. So we are their partner and I don’t mean to undermine that partnership.”
Qatar Airways has pursued a global investment strategy, securing stakes in IAG, LATAM and Cathay Pacific, says Al Baker. “So I really don’t need to get involved [in Oneworld].”
Qatar Airways joined Oneworld in 2013, becoming the alliance's 13th member and the second Middle Eastern member alongside Royal Jordanian.
 
#ciaone.

Il problema non e' tanto che siano in IAG, CX, LATAM o chittepare.

Il problema e' lui, e la cultura aziendale che da lui si emana.
 
Immagino come saranno terrorizzati negli States dalla possibile uscita di QR da OW...
 
Non basta spendere decine di miliardi ed acquistare partecipazioni in mezzo mondo per poter comandare.
'It just doesn't work like that'
 
Evidentemente AAB vorrebbe IG in OW, mentre in AA non ci pensano nemmeno.
Certo, cominciare la nuova avventura di AirItaly con due voli in piena concorrenza con quelli di AA, non è stato il modo migliore per iniziare un'amicizia.
 
belumosi ha detto:
Evidentemente AAB vorrebbe IG in OW, mentre in AA non ci pensano nemmeno.
Certo, cominciare la nuova avventura di AirItaly con due voli in piena concorrenza con quelli di AA, non è stato il modo migliore per iniziare un'amicizia.
Clicca per espandere...
Direi che in AA con AAB ce l'hanno da tempo avendo sostanzialmente bloccato il suo ingresso nell'azionariato e con l'annosa battaglia fra big 3 Usa e Golfare.
Il modo di fare di AAB lo conosciamo, alla fine si accorderà. Certo che alle compagnie partecipate non farà piacere di avere uno dei più importanti azionisti sul piede di guerra, anche se puoi tenerlo in minoranza avere una tale spina nel fianco è un problema.
IG mi sa che farà fatica a entrare in Oneworld, anche perché sarebbe l'arma di AAB contro AA...
 
Farfallina ha detto:
IG mi sa che farà fatica a entrare in Oneworld, anche perché sarebbe l'arma di AAB contro AA...
Clicca per espandere...
IG nel grande schema delle cose e' praticamente insignificante. Quel poco network che ha e' solo un fastidio per i partners importanti come AA e BA. Riduce gli yields (gia molto bassi) sul mercato MIL-NYC e potenzialmente va a rompere le scatole anche a CX sul mercato MIL-HKG (diritti ottenuti e non ancora sfruttati sulla rotta da IG). Per come stanno le cose non vedo per quale motivo Oneworld debba stendere i tappeti rossi ad Air Italy. Che vantaggio ne trarrebbe?
 
AZ209 ha detto:
IG nel grande schema delle cose e' praticamente insignificante. Quel poco network che ha e' solo un fastidio per i partners importanti come AA e BA. Riduce gli yields (gia molto bassi) sul mercato MIL-NYC e potenzialmente va a rompere le scatole anche a CX sul mercato MIL-HKG (diritti ottenuti e non ancora sfruttati sulla rotta da IG). Per come stanno le cose non vedo per quale motivo Oneworld debba stendere i tappeti rossi ad Air Italy. Che vantaggio ne trarrebbe?
Clicca per espandere...
Vallo a spiegare ad AAB... solitamente non è abituato a farsi dire di no...
 
Noto vostre inaspettate frecciatine verso di lui. Eppure credevo lo consideraste il guru dell'aviazione.
(Che poi è facile essere guru se hai fondi illimitati e assenza di leggi/sindacati/ burocrazia)
 
Il punto è molto semplice: USA, Canada e gran parte dell'Europa, non vogliono che le mediorientali possano avere accesso al traffico tra il vecchio continente e il Nord America.
Non lo vogliono né attraverso le 5e libertà, né attraverso compagnie proxy come IG.
Per dare legittimità alle loro barricate, gli americani si appellano alla concorrenza sleale. Che è sicuramente tale visto che nessuna compagnia occidentale potrà mai avere la libertà di manovra (politica, finanziaria e sindacale) di QR, EK o EY. E questa è metà della verità.
L'altra metà è che in questo modo le major americane ed europee possono continuare a godere di un mercato parzialmente protetto e prosperare nonostante le loro grandi inefficienze.
Gli USA hanno imposto un congelamento dello status quo, formalmente accettato da Qatar ed Emirati e non sembrano disponibili a permettere che venga aggirato attraverso compagnie terze, che de jure sono europee, ma de facto sono controllate dagli emiri.
Per cui IG sarà liberissima di volare tra UE e Nord-America in quanto compagnia formalmente italiana, ma gli americani saranno altrettanto liberi di non fornirle alcuna cooperazione commerciale e tanto meno strategica.
Peraltro interviste come questa di Akbar Al Baker, dove il nostro dice che quelli di American non saprebbero che QR è il maggior azionista del loro alleato IAG (facendoli passare per deficienti), sembrano fatte apposta per allontanare un eventuale avvicinamento tra le posizioni.
Magari far sembrare la compagnia un po' più italiana lasciando il palcoscenico a qualcuno col passaporto tricolore, insieme ad un passo indietro mediatico di Akbar Al Baker, permetterebbe di non far apparire IG come "Qatar Airways Italy". Cosa che l'intervista di oggi tende a rendere invece palese. E non può che essere deleteria per la compagnia italiana.
 
Nuova puntata oggi a New York

Qatar Air CEO Threatens the Airline Could Exit Oneworld ‘Soon’
Dennis Schaal, Skift - Oct 18, 2018 1:25 pm

Qatar Airways CEO Akbar Al Baker may be posturing about leaving Oneworld, but he is indeed making alternative plans nonetheless.
— Dennis Schaal

Qatar Airways CEO Akbar Al Baker Qatar is losing his patience with Oneworld and said his airline could leave the alliance “soon.”

Asked whether an exit from the alliance could take place this year after giving Oneworld what he characterized as an “ultimatum,” Al Baker said: “I don’t know. We will wait and see what happens.”

Speaking with the press at the Peninsula Hotel in Manhattan Thursday, Al Baker said he’s tired of the “bad feelings” that American Airlines has stirred, and he’s worried of the obstructionist efforts that alliance member Qantas is carrying out on behalf of Emirates in Australia.

He noted with irony that American Airlines and British Airways were the entities that invited Qatar into the alliance in the first place.

Al Baker said that Qatar Airways is pursuing its own strategy, having taken 20 percent ownership of British Airways parent IAG, and investing in Latam and Air Italy, among others.

As for obstructionist effort by Qantas and American, which sought to end Qatar’s open skies agreement with the U.S., he said, “what is then the point in being in Oneworld?”

Airline alliances are supposed to involve interlining, sharing lounges, and reciprocal redeeming and burning miles, Al Baker said. “This is not happening on the American Airlines side,” he said, adding that American is spreading rumors about Qatar in order to restrict its growth.

In other news, Al Baker said he believes his airline, which is government-owned, will privatize sometime in the next decade. He argued that Lufthansa and Swiss were once government-owned, and that Qatar, as a relatively “new” airline, has the right to be government owned for a period, as well.

Reacting to the allegations by the three biggest U.S. legacy carriers that Qatar was unfairly taking government subsidies, Al Baker said that Qatar is not government-subsidized but government-owned, and that his government has the right to invest in the carrier.

Al Baker also said he’s interested in investing in a U.S. airline, but “we don’t want to rock the boat. Any stable CEO of any airline would want to invest in the U.S.”
Asked about the current controversy with Saudi Arabia, which is accused of murdering a Washington Post columnist and last year, with the United Arab Emirates, began a blockade of Qatar, Al Baker said, Qatar doesn’t want to benefit from the “demise of a poor journalist.”

Al Baker claimed the airline is in an improved position in the aftermath of the Saudi Arabia-led blockade, which led to an almost immediate 21 percent cut in capacity when it went into effect in June 2017. He said the airline’s losses were projected to be $1 billion at the time, but it finished the fiscal year with a “minimal loss.”

“As far as I ‘m concerned, after the blockade, we have benefited,” Al Baker said.

That is not exactly the whole story, however. Al Baker acknowledged as much, noting that U.S. President Donald Trump has said publicly that the blockade should end as soon as possible.

The airline, meanwhile, is launching three new destinations in December — Gothenburg, Sweden; Mombasa, India; and Da Nang, Vietnam.

The Qatar Air CEO claimed he isn’t concerned about speculation of an Emirates-Etihad merger. “We are competing with them anyway,” Al Baker said.

However, that downplays the fact that a merger could make them stronger.

The beginning of Al Baker’s presentation was geared to show the airline’s contribution to the U.S. economy to counter U.S. legacy carriers’ claims that Gulf carriers operations in the U.S. hurt American businesses and workers. Al Baker said Qatar Airways pumps some $4 billion into the U.S. economy annually, and that more than half of its 332 aircraft in operation or on order are American-manufactured from Boeing.

Al Baker quipped, though, that Qatar will begin flying the Airbus A350-1000 into New York’s JFK starting next week, adding he’s unsure how Boeing feels about that. He said Qatar is the first to fly that model into the United States.

https://skift.com/2018/10/18/qatar-air-ceo-threatens-the-airline-could-exit-oneworld-soon/
 
altro articolo, dice all'incirca le stesse cose

Qatar Airways May Leave Oneworld Soon, and Will Be Privatized Within Next Decade

Qatar Airways, one of the largest members of the Oneworld alliance headed by American Airlines and British Airways, may leave the group soon over its mistreatment of the Qatari airline, CEO Akbar al Baker said.

Speaking Thursday at a meeting with US media in New York, al Baker also announced that the government-owned airline will be privatized “within the next decade.”

Al Baker was especially trenchant about American, which he accused of being unsupportive of its alliance partner. He said Qatar Airways has given the alliance an ultimatum to enforce fair play within its members, although he did not elaborate on when that ultimatum might expire.

“We are waiting to see what will be the outcome of the ultimatum we have given to the Oneworld administration. We have told them that we are consrtantly being targeted by a Oneworld partner,” he said. “Alliance means interlining with each other, letting passengers use each other’s lounges, to be able to earn and burn miles on each other, to support each other. This is not happening from the American Airlines side. On the contrary, rumors have been constantly spread. The US government is being approached with lame excuses to restrict our investments, our growth. So what is the point?”

“American Airlines is a founding member of Oneworld, and we hope the alliance’s membersip remains intact,” Matt Miller, a spokesperson for American, said in response to a request for comment from TPG.

There is still “a lot of bad feeling both within my government and especially with me” about the longstanding spat between the three biggest airlines in the Middle East — Emirates, Etihad and Qatar — and the three biggest US airlines, American, Delta and United. That dispute was formally resolved between Qatar and the US earlier this year, and the other two airlines, based in the Emirates, followed shortly afterward.

Al Baker, though, is still unsatisfied with his nominal US partner.

“We were invited by American to join Oneworld,” he said Thursday, “so it is very hurting to see that very airline creating this bad feeling [saying] that we are government-subsidized, that we are not operating on a level playing field. Frankly I don’t understand.”

Qatar Airways is in fact owned by the Qatari government, a fact that al Baker obviously doesn’t dispute, but which he says is immaterial. “We are not government-subsidized, we are government-owned, and the government has absolute right to inject capital and equity into its business,” he said.

But Qatar Airways won’t be owned by the state for long, al Baker revealed. “British Airways, Lufthansa, Swiss, all of these airlines were government-owned once upon a time. They were government-owned for more than five or six decades before they were privatized. We are new, so we have the right also to be government-owned for that period before we would also be privatized, and actually we will not wait for five decades to be privatized. We will do it earlier.”

As for the exact date, it will be “within the next decade,” al Baker said.

TPG has reached out for comment to Oneworld as well, but has not heard back by the time of publication.

Featured image of Qatar Airways CEO Akbar al Baker speaking at the Peninsula Hotel in New York, October 18, 2018, by Alberto Riva/TPG)

https://thepointsguy.com/news/qatar-may-leave-one-world-soon/
 
aa/vv?? ha detto:
Noto vostre inaspettate frecciatine verso di lui. Eppure credevo lo consideraste il guru dell'aviazione.
(Che poi è facile essere guru se hai fondi illimitati e assenza di leggi/sindacati/ burocrazia)
Clicca per espandere...

In realtà, il Forum è infarcito di critiche ad AAB, la maggior parte delle quale molto specifiche e circostanziate.

L'unico che, a memoria, l'osanna tipo messia è 13900.
 
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