Re:Alaska Airlines to Buy Virgin America for $2.6B
by ubernostrum on Monday April 04, 2016 @03:59PM
(#11425001)
I for one would LOVE to see what an ME3 carrier could do with, say, American Airlines.
Depends. Is that an ME3 carrier on its own, or an ME3 carrier with an unlimited government subsidy to keep it afloat no matter how much money it loses? Because the latter is what really exists -- those airlines aren't run as for-profit businesses, they're run as vanity projects by the backing governments.
Re:Alaska Airlines to Buy Virgin America for $2.6B
by kchoudhu on Monday April 04, 2016 @11:55PM
(#11427668)
I'm not sure the links between the government and the ME3 carriers are as clear as you think. And even if they were (and this is going sound scandalous): who cares?
If some Emirati government wants to subsidize my domestic travel within the US, they should feel very free to do so! I'll take the better service and cheaper prices in a heartbeat.
No, I really don't.
In times of true national crisis, emergency powers allow the US government to commandeer the civil air fleet for military uses.
The rest of the time, these foreign ownership restrictions prevent better operators from taking ownership stakes and fixing the efficiency problems that plague uncompetitive mainline US airlines.
I for one would LOVE to see what an ME3 carrier could do with, say, American Airlines.