Qatar Airways is taking a page from Etihad's playbook, as they've just announced a deal whereby they'll take over a 9.99% stake in IAG, which is the parent company of British Airways and Iberia. The deal is worth $1.7 billion, and comes at a time when IAG's stock is at an all time high. Here's…
Continue reading: Qatar Airways Buys 9.99% Stake in British Airways Parent Company
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Incredibly bad news. The less influence QR and Ali Baker have in this industry, the better.
Here's to the hope.... Qatar's 5th freedom flights between US/Spain (no thanks to UK, due to silly taxes).
Kind of seeing this as part of existing grand plan of the Qatari sovereign funds/businesses in investing abroad as a means of securing medium term fixed income outside of monetisation of their depleting natural gas reserves. This is particularly true in the UK, where as you might know, Qataris already own large landmark property investments (think One Hyde Park, the Shard, Canary Wharf)...as well as other infrastructure investments, like retirement homes, even bid for Sainsburys in the past etc etc
Sigh... No offence Lucky, but ocassionally you get so focused on the airlines you like (e.g. British Airways) that you totally forget that there are other airlines and other markets out there.
If you look at this article, you've totally missed out that IAG owns several airlines. Yes, your precious BA is one of them. But the other big one, which I believe is the main reason Qatar has an interest in IAG, is Iberia.
Qatar has a long history of trying to get into the spanish market, they looked loosely at Air Madrid, and more intensely att Spanair, opting out at the literal very last minute before Spanair went belly up. Now they're finally there, since IAG has their main office, registry etc in Spain, and not in the Uk.
If Qatar is looking for a market where they can grow and even have a hugely profitable fifth freedom flights base, it's Spain, not Uk. Spain has very few direct flights to north america and instead they are used to feed the large hubs in London, Paris, etc. Unreal considering it's a country with 46 million inhabitants and an economy that largely depends on tourism.
I could be totally wrong of course but I wouldn't be surprised if all these potential direct routes from Spain to north and south america is what Qatar is really after.
As I know that you're a big fan of the DM, Ben...I wondered what do you think about their take on this issue:
Ben,
Not sure where I should ask this but I did email your team to see if they could help.
QR canceled our flight on 2/11(didn't notify us- AA says our message is still in the queue) I discovered it myself while looking through travel docs.
Used AA miles for biz.
AA says they can't confirm us together in the same class of service until maybe Monday due to back channels with QR. And maybe not at all.
We have to be in NBO for a safari on 2/12.
What are my options- does AA have to do anything?
Thanks so much!!!
@ Melissa -- They should be able to help, though indeed it may have to be on a weekday when they can manually open up space (which is Sunday in the Middle East).
Once the service from BA was on a par with that of qatar today but now the BA service is so lousy I won't fly them any more. Time will tell if Qatar make them up their game or downgrades them to a low cost no frills long haul carrier