How airlines obtain traffic rights

Normally airlines secure new or additional traffic rights through official governmental negotiations.

But trade deals can also play a role.

An interesting report in the latest Aviation Week suggests that the valuable US$7.03 billion deal between France and Qatar for the sale of 24 Rafale fighter jets may have secured Qatar Airways additional traffic rights into France.

Qatar Airways appears to “have secured traffic rights to fly three times a week each to Nice and Lyon.”

“French President Francois Hollande did not outright deny the Qatar Airways’ new traffic rights, but stressed the arrangement with the airline was separate from the Rafale deal.”

But with Air France making its views on the Gulfies well known then one wonders whether this is true or not.

Certainly both Lyon and Nice will be important French gateways for Qatar Airways as it seeks to develop its Doha hub.

Aviation Week asks if this trade deal will set a precedent for the Gulfies. Apparently the UAE is also looking to acquire new fighter jets.

http://aviationweek.com/commercial-aviation/qatar-airways-could-gain-more-traffic-rights-france-qatar-rafale-deal

France has plenty of military equipment to sell to whomever is willing to pay, just like any other country in the world. Hopefully avoiding the fiasco of the Mistral ships sold to Russia.

I can’t say to much, but Hollande is truthful, as any politician is, when he says the deal was a seperate one. Except the talks were held in parallel, and many other things were discussed as well with many concessions granted which we’ll likely hear about later – or not!

Suffice it to say, without those other deals Qatar would have looked elsewhere especially as the Rafale was not their first choice. You can’t bribe anymore but you can offer lots and lots of concessions!!!

we did hear a story last week of the Qatar CEO linking traffic rights to infrastructure development deals in Doha (a dutch issue, I believe), essentially bribery by any other name (FIFA would call a payment for football infrastructure development in Aruba)

on the next point, Air France won’t go out of business as the French government will find a way to prop them up without it looking like a state hand-out

@jjlasne – 07/05/2015 17:44 BST,

Using your logic, Pan Am would still be around as no carrier was more influential in world travel in the 20”s through to the 70’s than Pan Am, particularly in building airfields throughout Central and South America and the Pacific. Their collapse was due to poor choices of paying too much for National Airlines right when deregulation came, greedy unions, and a terrorist disaster to name the main causes. Air France on the other hand, stuck with more than greedy unions, will never collapse as the French wont allow it And as seen so often in the EU, certain countries can get away with ignoring the laws out of the EU they don’t like, and that would be France propping up AF. KL will survive if they can break away from AF, as the only part of the group making any money, as usual, is KLM and their subsidiaries. I just hope AF wont continue to drain the coffers of KL.