July 20, 2015

Capt. Canoll Open Skies Letter in Financial Times Demands Fair and Equal Opportunity

To the Editor,

Edward Luce’s story “The not so friendly skies of America” (July 12, 2015) makes serious factual errors and false assumptions. As president of one of the unions referenced, it is clear to me that Mr. Luce misunderstands our position regarding Open Skies. Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, alone among the 117 agreements the United States has signed, are pumping billions of dollars of illegal subsidies into their airlines. These massive, unprecedented subsidies are distorting the global marketplace, harming the U.S. airline industry, and threatening U.S. workers’ jobs.

American international skies are not closed to other airlines. Following Tuesday’s signing ceremony with Ukraine, the United States government now has 117 Open Skies agreements with other nations, allowing their airlines to fly to and from U.S. cities with no limits on international flights or prices. But a key principle of Open Skies is that in return for receiving open access to the U.S. market, foreign governments agree to allow fair, market-based competition among airlines, with minimum government interference. The tens of billions of dollars in subsidies and unfair benefits that Qatar and the UAE are providing to their state-owned carriers is the antithesis of that commitment.

Mr. Luce argues that the “obvious remedy” is to “open up the U.S. skies to foreign carriers,” which may be read to suggest that the United States should allow foreign airlines to carry traffic between U.S. domestic points—so-called “cabotage” operations.  But no Open Skies agreement between the U.S. and the rest of the world, including with Qatar and the UAE, gives foreign carriers such domestic rights.  In fact, aside from the EU’s special “Community airline” concept, almost no other country in the world allows foreign airlines to conduct domestic operations either. 

Additionally, Mr. Luce argues that U.S. airlines have benefitted from Chapter 11 bankruptcy law. But bankruptcy is not a subsidy. I have been through the pain of the bankruptcy process; I had to fight for pay and pensions for the pilots in our union. And I can say with certainty that there is no equating bankruptcy—in which there is no U.S. government infusion of cash into U.S. airlines—with the unlimited infusion of cash from foreign government treasuries. Open Skies policy demands a level playing field for all players to have a fair and equal opportunity to compete. The U.S. airlines and their workers have played by the rules while the Gulf carriers have taken endless injections of cash from their governmental sponsors in order to gain an advantage in the marketplace. It’s time for the Obama Administration to stand up for our American workers.

Captain Tim Canoll

President of the Air Line Pilots Association, International (ALPA)


Read the letter to the editor in Financial Times (Subscription Publication)

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