Is Air Italy the Trojan horse of Qatar Airways on the US market?

The United States accuses Qatar Airways of having invested in Air Italy to circumvent the limitations imposed on it by the open skies agreement between the two countries.

Qatar Airways has owned 49% of Air Italy (formerly Meridiana and so renamed by Qatar) since 2017. What the U.S. administration is complaining about is that the launch of Air Italy flights to the U.S. are in violation of the open skies agreement, which prohibits Qatar Airways from launching new flights to the United States.

What to think about it?

We have known for a long time the tumultuous relations that the Gulf airlines have with the American airlines and authorities, and Qatar in particular, which is almost at war with American Airlines and the OneWorld alliance of which they are both members. And the fussy reaction of the US authorities seems to be more intended to tickle Qatar than to stop any violation of the agreement.

Already because Qatar only owns 49% of the parent company of Air Italy, which is a minority stake. Considering an Air Italy flight as a Qatar flight would mean that a British Airways flight is also a Qatar flight since the Gulf carrier is a minority shareholder of IAG, the parent company of British Airways and Iberia.

In the same way, Delta and its 49% stake in Virgin Atlantic could be accused of wanting to serve Qatar or the Emirates from London.

Secondly, the size of Air Italy does not make it a credible Trojan horse. Air Italy operates only one daily flight to the USA (Milan-New York) and 3 others with reduced frequencies. And it’s not with a fleet of less than 15 aircrafts that Air Italy will change much in the landscape. What if Air Italy got bigger all at once? Let’s wait and see what it will do with its 30 B787 on order.

Finally, because although Air Italy now operates code-share flights under the Qatar flight number, the United States is not a destination concerned.

So yes, if Qatar were to increase its stake to 50 or 51% and Air Italy were to start multiplying flights to the USA in code-share with Qatar, there would obviously be something wrong.

But in the current state of affairs it is mostly the umpteenth episode of “I love you but I don’t care” game which is played out between the Gulf and US airlines and authorities and where anything that might annoy the Qatari airline is put to good use even if, in this case, it is hardly a storm in a glass of water and a little bad faith.

 

Photo : Qatar Airways by Fasttailwind via Shutterstock

Bertrand Duperrin
Bertrand Duperrinhttp://www.duperrin.com
Compulsive traveler, present in the French #avgeek community since the late 2000s and passionate about (long) travel since his youth, Bertrand Duperrin co-founded Travel Guys with Olivier Delestre in March 2015.
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