Qatar isolated by neighbouring countries – what does this mean for QR?

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Viewing 15 posts - 16 through 30 (of 68 total)

  • Tom Otley
    Keymaster

    Piece on Bloomberg…

    Qatar Airways to Be Biggest Victim in Gulf Diplomatic Breakdown

    “Some 76 daily flights are likely to be grounded, of which 52 are operated by Qatar Airways, after Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates suspended ties with Qatar, according to data from scheduling firm OAG. Some 30 percent of the carrier’s revenue could be affected, aviation analysts at Frost & Sullivan estimate…. Among Qatar Airways operations set to be shut is a shuttle to Dubai that operates 14 times a day.”

    Quotes an analyst as saying that the airline “…could see a 30 percent revenue hit includes the loss of direct traffic, the operational cost of diverting flights, the idling of planes, a disproportionate decline in premium bookings given the relative wealth of the countries imposing the ban, and a possible slump in leisure demand.”


    Tom Otley
    Keymaster

    Meanwhile CEO Akbar Al Baker has left the IATO Conference…


    rodders
    Participant

    Having lived in Qatar for 4 years, have some inkling of the wider issues. They have to RFerguson’s point always been conservative in the religious sense, the closest to Saudi in this regard, but have always adopted a much more independent foreign policy, for several years there was an Israeli Trade development office in Qatar (now closed), and this independent approach has often irked its neighbours, same thing with Al-Jazera which I always found to be rather good, but again its probing and investigative side was not always well received.
    So, this has been brewing for a while, I hope it gets resolved quickly, the summer holiday season is almost upon the Gulf, and many flights will have been sold out long ago, so hopefully the holiday plans of many folks won’t be disrupted. Time will tell….


    TominScotland
    Participant

    Aside from the main theme, Tom, I love the CAPA picture – gender balance at its best!! I take it Easyjet is not a member.


    K1ngston
    Participant

    Reading between the lines I noted that the Emir of Qatar had criticised the Saudi King and Royal Family and then as if by magic these events start to take place… Call me a cynic ….

    I totally agree with RFerguson, this is so like the kettle calling the pot black, I hope they get it sorted out quickly as stated as a lot of friends and colleagues flying back to Europe on QR, and with the airways closed I dont know if this will cause them an issue …


    Inthesandpit
    Participant

    (Ed note: In aviation, a flight information region (FIR) is a specified region of airspace in which a flight information service and an alerting service (ALRS) are provided.)

    KIMI_CDG
    An FIR is not necessarily Sovereign Airspace, it can depend on local agreements and delegated airspace which is very common on the London FIR / Paris FIR borders where Sovereign UK airspace is controlled by the French and visa versa.

    QR is able to depart and arrive traffic to the East into the Tehran FIR below Flight level 250 on a single route as this is Qatari airspace normally controlled by the Bahrain ACC.

    Flightradar24 is showing traffic on this track.


    Kimi_CDG
    Participant

    [quote quote=812242]KIMI_CDG
    An FIR is not necessarily Sovereign Airspace, it can depend on local agreements and delegated airspace which is very common on the London FIR / Paris FIR borders where Sovereign UK airspace is controlled by the French and visa versa. QR are able to depart and arrive traffic to the East into the Tehran FIR below Flight level 250 on a single route as this is Qatari airspace normally controlled by the Bahrain ACC. Flightradar24 is showing traffic on this track.

    [/quote]

    Thanks for the clarification. I hope no route will be cancelled because of the incurred detour.


    Tom Otley
    Keymaster

    Qatar diplomatic crisis: All the latest updates

    Saudia Arabia has now suspended QR’s license

    12:20am – Saudi suspends Qatar Airways license
    According to the Saudi press, transport authorities in Saudi have cancelled Qatar Airways license to operate in Saudi Arabia.
    The authorities also decides to close all Qatar’s Airways offices in the Kingdom.


    K1ngston
    Participant

    Lots of bulletins but in laymans terms what does it mean? Can I fly from SIN to LHR via DOH without issue or do I need to be changing my thoughts on getting back to Blighty??


    AMcWhirter
    Participant

    The new flight routings QR must now take is adding to flight times (depending on destination).

    Today’s Doha-Sao Paulo non-stop flight (which can no longer overfly Saudi Arabia) had to take a northerly routing from Doha which meant it had to stop in Athens for re-fuelling.

    One wonders whether QR’s Doha-Auckland service will still be able to operate non-stop …


    Cloud-9
    Participant

    The news in KL reports that this started to hatch shortly after Trump visited Saudi and confirmed a masive arms deal.

    It is well known that the USA consider Iran and Syria its enemies. Qatar is friendly with Iran therefore – in Trump’s simplistic world – Saudi is his bezzie mate and Qatar his enemy. (The Saudis were not keen on Obama)

    That is to say that any action taken against Qatar by the gulf states can now count on the support of the USA, thus emboldening them to issue threats.

    And this action may stem from matters purely funancial: the other gulf states being intimidated by Qatar’s huge oil reserves, and maybe passengers deserting EK/EY for QR following the launch of their QSuite.

    Kuwait have been asked to mediate to hopefully brung this to an amicable solution soon.

    Qatar was home of the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas. Saudi also detest Qatar’s independent foreign policy and not toeing the middle eastern line in that area.


    Cloud-9
    Participant

    SimonS1
    Participant

    [quote quote=812372]The news in KL reports that this started to hatch shortly after Trump visited Saudi and confirmed a masive arms deal.

    It is well known that the USA consider Iran and Syria its enemies. Qatar is friendly with Iran therefore – in Trump’s simplistic world – Saudi is his bezzie mate and Qatar his enemy. (The Saudis were not keen on Obama)

    That is to say that any action taken against Qatar by the gulf states can now count on the support of the USA, thus emboldening them to issue threats.

    And this action may stem from matters purely funancial: the other gulf states being intimidated by Qatar’s huge oil reserves, and maybe passengers deserting EK/EY for QR following the launch of their QSuite.

    [/quote]

    It ‘started to hatch’ many years ago and the tensions have been there for a long time. During my years in Saudi in 2000s the Saudis never had an ambassador in Doha and there were the 2014 problems as well when other GCC countries withdrew diplomats. So to present it as Trump inspired is nonsense.

    Secondly the bit about oil reserves is also nonsense, Qatar oil reserves are not in the top 12 globally and smaller than Saudi, UAE and Kuwait. There is certainly no intimidation there.

    As for political tensions due to the Q suite, its so silly its funny.

    I’m not sure who is knocking out the news in KL these days but they need to get out a bit more.


    K1ngston
    Participant

    SimonS1 your comments above about the media in Malaysia made me smile, for those who dont know Malaysia is firmly in the hands of the Saudis, their PM in the midst of a corruption scandal where something like $100M USD was found in his personal bank account and “apparently” it was a gift from the Saudi Government! Also if you go to KLIA there are a couple of abandoned Saudi Airline 747s there so news from there is “iffy” and censored beyond belief so dont believe a word..

    Reports here in Singapore ( slightly less censored) is what I mentioned previously that the Emir criticised the Crown of Saudi and a long standing dispute reared its head again


    SimonS1
    Participant

    [quote quote=812405]SimonS1 your comments above about the media in Malaysia made me smile, for those who dont know Malaysia is firmly in the hands of the Saudis, their PM in the midst of a corruption scandal where something like $100M USD was found in his personal bank account and “apparently” it was a gift from the Saudi Government! Also if you go to KLIA there are a couple of abandoned Saudi Airline 747s there so news from there is “iffy” and censored beyond belief so dont believe a word..

    Reports here in Singapore ( slightly less censored) is what I mentioned previously that the Emir criticised the Crown of Saudi and a long standing dispute reared its head again

    [/quote]

    That sounds about right. I suspect the reported ransom payment of $1bn by the Qataris probably didn’t help much.

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