Arab airlines take a dig at European carriers on capacity dumping

Arab airlines have hit back at charges levelled against them by European airlines for ''capacity dumping,'' by saying that a lot of ''myths'' created about Arab airlines aren't actually true.

Earlier this year the Association of European Airlines charged the ''Big Three'' Arab carriers- Emirates, Qatar Airways and Etihad as representing a new kind of competitive threat that was incompatible with the existing world aviation order.

Speaking to the International Aviation Club (IAC) in Washington in January, Association of European Airlines secretary general, Schulte-Strathaus, had said that the trio of Gulf-based carriers "are owned by their respective governments and operated as an instrument of national strategy … and they are integrated vertically across commerce, tourism and foreign policy".

He said there ought to be an ICAO mechanism to regulate "capacity dumping."

Speaking at a IAC luncheon on Tuesday, Arab Air Carriers Organization (AACO) secretary general, Abdul Wahab Teffaha, countered by saying that there was nothing ''strange" about the way Arab airlines had grown and developed.

"Well, Arab airlines are not subsidized to start with," he stated. "Truth be told, European airlines … through most of their history have been state-owned, subsidized and supported." He pointed out that US airlines "are given the protection of Chapter 11" and after 9/11 "the US government actually supported the airlines" with financial assistance.