Author : editor
Etihad CEO James Hogan has warned rival European carriers to either adapt to changing competitive realities or face becoming irrelevant.
In a speech to the European Aviation Club in Brussels on Thursday, he also cautioned European governments against adopting protectionist policies for national carriers in the economic downturn.
“Protecting a national carrier from open competition is a net negative policy setting for any economy. Any benefits to those airlines yielded from a protected aviation market are far, far outweighed by the loss of traffic growth and associated job creation to the wider economy,” he said.
Hogan told the conference that a freely competitive market was enormously beneficial to the European aircraft manufacturing industry. He said current orders for Airbus aircraft from Gulf carriers were worth some $80bn.
He added competition was good for European carriers.
“I believe the legacy carriers of Europe have a unique opportunity to use the emergence of genuine competition as a catalyst to transform their own customer offerings and to modernise the way they do business. Failure to do so represents a threat to their ongoing relevance and their ability to compete in the global market.”
In 2010, CEO’s of several European carriers attacked Gulf airlines, accusing them of receiving subsidised fuel and unfair advantages in export credit financing.
“They would be well advised to focus less on how unfair they perceive the world to be, and more on how to adapt to take advantage of emerging opportunities and changing operating conditions… those that cling to the old order of things will be left behind,” Hogan said.
Hogan said 2011 would see many changes to the routes Etihad operated in Europe. He said the airline would add one more European city destination, but did not specify which.
“This year we will enter five wide-body passenger aircraft into service. We are going to use these new aircraft to significantly enhance our European schedule. From June through to August, we will gradually increase our frequencies. Brussels will go from six to eight flights a week. Geneva and Milan will go daily. Paris will go double daily. Manchester will move to ten flights a week, and then go double daily before year end.”
Source : arabianbusiness.com
