News and notes from around the interweb:
- Bernd Hildenbrand, CEO of the worst airline in the world Pakistan International Airlines, is asking the Pakistani government (which largely owns the airline) to restrict competition from Emirates and Etihad. Maybe he deserves to be detained in the country after all.
Hildenbrand said PIA was losing PKR3.1 billion rupees (USD30 million) per month with carriers such as Emirates and Etihad Airways eating into its market share through cheaper flights and superior on-board product.
As such, he asked government, the carrier’s largest shareholder, to restrict the UAE-based carriers’ access to Pakistan in the interests of saving the airline.
On the other hand, while inadvisable for the economy and the country’s passengers, there’s at least a plausible case to be made for saving the airline — in contrast to calls by US airlines which are the most profitable in the world to limit competition from these same airlines.
- Selfie Survey: Instagrammability is the most important factor — above cheap alcohol, even — for millenials when choosing a holiday destination
- St. Louis is considering privatizing its airport.
- How the laptop ban makes your data insecure even if you encrypt your hard drive, giving up physical control of your laptop allows someone to install spyware.
- The Best Time to Poop on a Plane (HT: Paul H.)
- American and Southwest get a fuel tax subsidy for hubbing in Phoenix but cough it’s the Gulf carriers that are unfairly subsidized.
- WSJ: “More than 80% of people who ask for relief from their annual fees receive it”
- TSA agent pleads guilty after taking video underneath passenger skirts. But remember, the TSA wants you to know that new more ‘intimate’ pat downs aren’t sexual assault.
Sooooo….not charging as much for a tax that other cities don’t charge is now a subsidy? Per the source article “major hub cities like Charlotte, N.C., and Washington, D.C., don’t levy a similar tax.”
Again, for the record, paying reduced TAXES on fuel is absolutely nothing like your government providing your company with billions in dollars in direct subsidies. It’s a tax break, not a subsidy. Two wildly different concepts, that only bloggers who fly for free on Middle East airlines seem to confuse.
Uh, no, the way the tax is structured is definitely a subsidy aimed at getting airlines to concentrate their flights there. Airlines that buy more than 10M gallons of fuel per year — i.e. those with large operations at Sky Harbor — get a reduced tax bill, while those that have say one flight a day pay full price. That’s a subsidy for the larger airlines. It’s not a large one, but I see no justification for it, since the tax is used to fund the airport itself. Larger users should pay more to maintain it.
@dbeach, that’s not a subsidy. Charging a tax for something others don’t tax by definition is the opposite of a subsidy. And even if every other city did charge that tax, it’s not a subsidy because the city is using the tax reduction as a means to attract the business. That is fair game for a company to use its purchasing power and size as leverage to negotiate the best deal it can. If 2 catering companies are competing to be the food supplier to an airline and reduce their profit so they can undercut the other bidders for the business, that is not a subsidy either.
@iahphx is exactly right. There is this one sided bias in the blogosphere these days that likes to pretend the Middle east carriers somehow make better business decisions. They didn’t hit a triple…they were born on third base.