QATAR Airways’ CEO, Akbar Al Baker, has hit back at comments made by the secretary general of the Association of European Airlines about the pressures a growing prominence of Gulf carriers are placing on the global aviation industry, the same day the Doha-based airline announced plans to fly twice daily to Singapore.
Al Baker took issue with several accusations made by Ulrich Schulte-Strathaus at a recent gathering of the International Aviation Club in Washington, DC, among them an alleged “anomaly in aviation” due to the proximity of hubs in Doha, Dubai and Abu Dhabi.
The airline chief cited examples of multiple hubs in Paris, Amsterdam and London as well as Frankfurt, Zurich and Vienna.
Al Baker said comparing the aircraft order book of the Gulf airlines with that of the US carriers in the longhaul wide-body arena was also erroneous as the “backbone of the US air transport industry is domestic operations”.
“The European airlines were pioneers in a large number of areas. We in the Gulf airline community have learnt a lot from them. They should accept competition, and that the customer is in the driver’s seat,” he said.
– Read more in TTG Asia, February 25 issue
