Opinion: What is the ME3...

So what’s wrong with a little foreign competition? The lack of a level playing field, say U.S. carriers, the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA), and others. According to the Partnership for Open and Fair Skies, a coalition of U.S. airlines and trade groups, the governments of Qatar and the United Arab Emirates have pumped $52 billion in subsidies into their respective carriers since 2004. Comparatively, the U.S. carriers—which mostly rely on the profits made in a free-market economy—simply can’t compete. The partnership claims that these subsidies are a violation of the open-skies policy, “which is based on the principle of fair competition in a marketplace free of government distortion,” according to the Partnership’s website.

From a passenger standpoint, the ME3 airlines provide superior service with large, new airplanes and services and amenities not found aboard U.S. carriers. If passengers were aware of the subsidies, would they care? Not likely, since end users buy the best service their money can buy. But the reality is that the ME3 would lose pots of money were it not for their government prop-ups. While U.S. carriers must sell a certain number of seats for a specific amount of money to break even, the ME3 can undercut them all and still make a profit. As a result, none of the U.S. carriers flies to Doha, Dubai, or Abu Dhabi anymore. In fact, flights to many other Middle East destinations have also disappeared off U.S. airline schedules because they simply can’t compete.

What’s wrong with a little foreign competition? An uneven playing field, say U.S. carriers, the Air Line Pilots Association, and others.If U.S. airlines are cutting flights and capacity, it’s also a threat to jobs and quality of life—hence the interest of pilots and flight attendant unions that are entering the fracas. A May Washington Times article on the subject estimated that the subsidies from the UAE alone put 1.2 million American jobs in jeopardy. On the other hand, Boeing’s business is going well. The company employs lots of people in the United States to make the big, new, expensive airplanes that the ME3 purchase. Aerospace manufacturing jobs in the United States are doing well at the expense of U.S. carriers and crewmembers.

Domestic carriers are no saints, however. They’re nearly all guilty of accepting subsidies of their own. Countless bankruptcy reorganizations by several airlines, post-9/11 bailouts, and some $300 million a year in funding for the Essential Air Service program easily come to mind. But, most analysts say, the subsidies reaped by U.S. carriers are chump change compared to the billions raked in by the ME3.

Career-wise, ME3 pilots and flight attendants fall short of the pay, benefits, and work rules of employees at major U.S. carriers. Pressure to perform and work up to the flight and duty-time limits are counter to safety, according to ALPA and other unions who are attempting to circle their wagons around solid careers for members. In fact, AVweb reported that Emirates is parking 18 percent of its fleet and cutting flights because it can’t find pilots. The report also mentions lack of work rules and minimal staffing as reasons pilots don’t like working at Emirates.

Before the exit of U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in the spring, some progress was made with Qatar Airways, which agreed to “increased transparency commitments and an important written pledge not to fly fifth-freedom routes into the U.S.,” according to Americans for Fair Skies. (Fifth-freedom flights allow an airline from one country the right to fly between two other countries.)

More recently and significantly, in May, the Trump administration with new Secretary of State Mike Pompeo secured a similar deal with the UAE wherein its two airlines must adhere to transparency clauses and financial disclosure standards. Like Qatar, the UAE must freeze additional fifth-freedom flights into the United States. After a decade of the ME3 carriers denying the existence of subsidies and Open Skies violations, airline and labor analysts look at these recent steps as positive steps in at least stopping the unfair growth.

This is a hot-button issue for those already employed at U.S. airlines as well as those considering an airline career, so stay tuned.