Qatar Airways A350 (Photo: Qatar Airways)
American Airlines said it plans to terminate its code-sharing partnerships with Qatar Airways and Etihad next year. This simply means you won’t be able to buy (or redeem points for) an American Airlines ticket to fly on operated by either airline– or vice versa. However, frequent flyer partnerships will remain in place. For now, at least.
This shouldn’t come as a surprise, considering that American, Delta and United have been engaged in a years-long fight against the Middle East Big Three – Etihad, Qatar and Emirates – alleging that those carriers are subsidized by their governments, in violation of the Open Skies agreements that have allowed them to greatly expand their U.S. presence in recent years. The Mideast carriers deny those allegations.
The U.S. carriers have long been lobbying the federal government to curtail any new route rights for the Mideast trio, and have mounted extensive public relations campaigns to air their grievances. They even formed an advocacy group called the Partnership for Open & Fair Skies to promote their cause. Its motto is “a level playing field for all.”
Etihad, like Qatar and Emirates, has added more U.S. gateways in recent years, but will leave SFO this October (Photo: SFO/PeterBiaggi)
So things have been quite tense between the U.S. Big Three and the Mideast Big Three for a long time.
Qatar Airways roiled the waters even more last month when it said it planned to acquire a stake of up to 10 percent in American Airlines – an unsolicited offer that American did not welcome.
A week after that investment plan was made public, American told both Qatar and Etihad that it would be pulling the plug on its code-sharing agreements with both of them effective March 25 of next year. Qatar Airways has been a member of American’s Oneworld global alliance since 2013.
American said that in view of the “extremely strong public stance” that it has taken against the Mideast Big Three, continuing its code-share partnerships with Etihad and Qatar would “no longer make sense for us.”
Important: An American official told Air Transport World that other aspects of the airline’s relationships with Qatar and Etihad will stay in place, including interline access, frequent flyer programs and airport lounge access. The downside of the loss of codesharing means that Advantage members will no longer earn elite qualifying miles on flights operated by Qatar or Etihad.
The decision to end code-sharing was made shortly before another incident that made relations between the carriers even worse. Qatar Airways CEO Akbar Al-Baker gave a speech last week in which he bragged about his airline’s flight attendants having an average age of just 26, compared to what he called the “grandmothers” who comprise the flight crews of American carriers. He also referred to the U.S. carriers as “crap.” He later apologized for the remarks.
What do make of all this? Please leave your comments below.
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I’ve heard this before, but I don’t have any first hand knowledge of it. I do know, however, that some time ago DL screwed stockholders by filing bankruptcy, and employees (like pilots) by terminating pension plan. And I hear QA treats its customers better than DL.
Qatar Airlines treats its employees horribly. And as witnessed by its CEO’s comments, brazenly engages in age discrimination (among other things.)
Surely cutting code-shares would have no impact on award redemption, right? Awards are generally (if not always) booked on the airlines native flight number, regardless of whether it has a codeshare or not.
Delta my home airline has got a vendetta against Qatar Air for the past year or two. They put up billboards accusing QA of doing all kinds of unfair things. Yet it’s DL who filed bankruptcy and screwed its shareholders, and they all (the big 3 domestic airlines) got billions of dollars in subsidies after 9/11. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black….
That’s the point, we would all love to fly Etihad, Qatar and Emirates, airlines that are run the right way and put there pride in doing the right thing first over profits.
I am sorry but I don’t buy into American, United and Delta claiming that Etihad, Qatar and Emirates are subsidized by their governments. Yes they are government run airlines, but we don’t say the same about British Airways and Air France, which get a lot of government subsidies. What do you call what the United States government did in allowing American, United and Delta to buy up all the competition and run a monopoly in most of their markets so that they can charge whatever they want.
I am sorry but it’s just not right, yesterday fantasy sports sites Fan Duel and DraftKings gave up trying to merge as the United States government held fast that they had to stop Fan Duel and Draftkings from becoming a monopoly, sorry that is a simple fantasy sports game.
But what did the US government do on each of the airline mergers, roll over and play dead allowing them to be rich.
Sorry these airlines have a lot of balls to claim that airlines that are not only run better, but are the type of airlines we should all have in the United States, the kind of airline that care about the customer, not like the greedy American, United and Delta.
Sorry but this is an easy laugh on this claim against Etihad, Qatar and Emirates.
The truth is the truth on the FA’s. I was on a DL from Narita to ATL and holy smokes the average age had to be 65. Service was sub par. My grandmother gave better service at her home.
Since Qatar and AA are both in the OneWorld alliance, cutting ties with Qatar is trickier to pull off.
As for code-sharing, who would fly AA if Qatar was an option?