In what many expect to be good news for additional cheap traveloptions, including cheapairplane tickets, discounttravel deals, and cheap vacation packages,small Arab nations (including Abu Dubai, Qatar, and United Arab Emirates) arepurchasing far more new planes than are needed to service their own tinypopulations.
These nations are home to hubs of three of the fastestgrowing airlines (Qatar Airways, Emirates, and Etihad Airways) that have provenmore than capable of competing with the worlds much larger airlines.
These three airlines purchased 342 new planes from Boeingand 142 planes from Airbus at last years Dubai Air Show.
Qatar Airways recently accepted receipt of its first newBoeing 787 Dreamliner which is made largely from lightweight carboncomposites. The airline has 30 moreDreamliners on order and an option to purchase an additional 30. These planes are highly desirable because oftheir fuel efficiency and passenger friendly interiors.
The Middle East carriers commitment to purchasing cuttingedge new planes is indicative of how they are positioning themselves at the topof global customer satisfaction rankings.
These airlines are aiming to dramatically expand theirflights at the expense of not only Singapore and Lufthansa Airlines, but alsoU.S. airlines who continue to struggle and remain under capitalized after yearsof damaging price wars, poor management, wage cuts, old planes, unreliableservice, and other problems.
The expanding Middle East airlines have significant (someclaim unfair) backing from their governments. The U.S. based airline pilots association (ALPA) is lobbying against theAbu Dhabi airport receiving permission to offer U.S. Customs pre-clearancesince it claims this would give an unfair service advantage to Etihad Airlines,given that no U.S. based airline flies from Abu Dhabi to the U.S.
Middle East Airlines are pursuing policies of quick growthby leveraging their locations, which lets them connect passengers to citiesacross continents with a single stop at their Gulf hubs. Now they are starting to fill out theirnetworks by adding more destinations in the United States because of thecountrys size and limited direct connection to many overseas destinations.
Recent examples of increased Middle East destinations inthe U.S. are Qatar flying to Philadelphia, Emirates to Boston, and Etihad toLos Angeles.
The competition on long haul (i.e., long distance) flightsis likely to make such flights more pleasant and perhaps even cheaper.
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