Flight Attendants Fighting Open Skies Violations

U.S. airlines should be competing with other airlines, not the treasuries of wealthy nations, AFA-CWA President Sara Nelson writes in a recent op-ed in The Hill.

Nelson points out that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Qatar have poured more than $42 billion in subsidies into their state-owned airlines, Emirates, Qatar Airways and Etihad Airways. As a result, they threaten to "choke out the U.S. aviation industry" by undercutting competitors' prices – a direct violation of the Open Skies agreements that keep governments from interfering with carriers' routes, capacity, and pricing.

She writes:

"The U.S. has 117 Open Skies agreements and the UAE and Qatar are the only countries breaking the rules. These agreements only work when both sides abide by them, which is not the case with the Gulf carriers.

These Gulf carriers have expanded rapidly without creating any meaningful new demand; instead, they are flooding the U.S. with new subsidized flights in an effort to dominate global aviation. Since the beginning of the year, the three Gulf carriers have announced they are expanding service to the U.S. by a whopping 25 percent. This is threatening American jobs, routes and service for travelers. Leading economists and industry experts estimate that every international roundtrip flight lost by a U.S. carrier results in the elimination of more than 800 American jobs.

Following Emirates' subsidized entry into four key markets, bookings on U.S. carriers and their joint venture partners dropped an average of 10.8 percent in Boston, 7.6 percent in Dallas-Fort Worth, 21.4 percent in Seattle and 14.3 percent in Washington, D.C. The harm inflicted by the decline in bookings over time will result in cuts in service to these and other American cities by the U.S. carriers, who cannot rely on a blank government checkbook to keep those flights operating."

AFA-CWA urges the Obama administration take action to ensure all airlines are competing on a level playing field. Read the full op-ed here.