US considers raising foreign ownership limits

[Dizel8]

Huh? It is all about politics!!! Not about whose party is better, but the political issue!!!!

I apologize Rez, I may not have been clear. You are absolutely correct, that this is a political issue. What I meant to say was, let's not turn it into Clinton vs Bush and who did what to whom. Now, this is taking place under Bush, however, I have little doubt, that had it been pushed when Clinton was in power, the spectre would be the same.

For those that think that access to the EU markets would be worth opening the US skies, I think we in the US stands to lose much more, than we stand to gain. The EU wants full, unfettered access to the US, probably point to point within the US.

Like someone esle said, other boards mostly frequented by frequent flyers are always raving about the likes of Virgin and Singapore/Thai, you know, cute little flight attendants. We know NWA managements dreams about using the very same F/A's.

As for the cargo side, I have no idea, how much revenue UPS or FedEx currently gets from the EU vs what they think they will get in the future, it certainly would be interesting to hear, but I still believe, that opening the skies would have some ugly side effects.

 

[OpenSkies]

Someone said on this board recently that it's now every pilot group for themselves. With that being said, open skies would be a great benefit to the UPS/IPA pilots.

 

[Rez O. Lewshun]

Give to APA/ALPA-PAC

Yesterday, the Bush administration launched a notice of proposed rulemaking to change the control provision of the law governing foreign ownership and control of U.S. airlines. By attempting this NPRM, the administration is clearly trying to avoid and bypass the role of Congress.
ALPA's president, Capt. Duane Woerth, met with senior administration officials yesterday to get an explanation, and along with ALPA's Government Affairs staff, met with many members of Congress and their staff, who had just returned from briefings by the administration.
"Three things are clear," Capt. Woerth said. "First, the principal motivation behind this is to appease the European Union, which wants to clearly own and control U.S. airlines and has made it a condition of continuing bargaining over our U.S. and European Union multilateral trade agreement. Secondly, many members of Congress are very unhappy with the administration's jurisdictional grab or overreach. And third, U.S. airlines themselves are all over the map on whether they support this--or oppose this--or even understand it."
The public comment period will last 60 days, but the amount of time after that before a final rule on an NPRM is issued varies extremely widely--from many months to many years. What will happen or when or if a final rule will be issued after the public comment period is very unclear. ALPA will monitor and report on this crucial issue.

 

[FlyBoeingJets]

Before you think about how good it will be for us, remember this will be a reciprocal agreement.

Our airlines will be able to own foreign carriers too. UPS management could then use the planes owned by their foreign subsidary, French Fry freight and Chinese Chicken Cargo, to fly UPS cargo to Kentucky. That wouldn't be too good for the IPA.

 

[WhiteCloud]

Someone said on this board recently that it's now every pilot group for themselves. With that being said, open skies would be a great benefit to the UPS/IPA pilots.

That's true enough. Those new, less expensive, UPS pilots from Europe will be doing great on the new international routes to the US and abroad.

 

[WhiteCloud]

Before you think about how good it will be for us, remember this will be a reciprocal agreement.

Our airlines will be able to own foreign carriers too. UPS management could then use the planes owned by their foreign subsidary, French Fry freight and Chinese Chicken Cargo, to fly UPS cargo to Kentucky. That wouldn't be too good for the IPA.

Competition will increase and barriers to entry will fall further, IMHO. At the least, pressure on scope clauses and the like will increase. It may start slow at first so those within 5 years of retirement will probably like it.

Sounds familiar doesn't it. Airline X management to ALPA......"We'll just restrict the commuters to 19 seat turbo props and short routes where jet service is not economical." "You guys don't really want to fly those little planes to Hicksville do you?" "Worried about cheaper pilots taking your routes and jets?....No problem....we'll just have scope clauses to protect the mainline pilots". When will we learn?

 

[OpenSkies]

It's amazing how cynical you pax guys have become. Just because ALPA is so *************************ed up don't assume that every union is impotent.

 

[Rez O. Lewshun]

It's amazing how cynical you pax guys have become. Just because ALPA is so *************************ed up don't assume that every union is impotent.

If ALPA is jacked up, then so is the membership....

ALPA has alot of work to do, but so does it's membership........... Thier ignorance is eroding from within....

 

[JohnDoe]

Open skies (aka freight nazi, i have a pension):

You actually think, that if open skies becomes reality, your little contract will end up protecting you?? LOL.

Your company will be frothing at the mouth to drop you in favor of cheap foreign pilots any way they can.

Like somebody else said, It'll work both ways. They'll buy some foreign carrier and start bringing them into this country.

After the events of the last 5 years in this industry, how can you actually say "can't happen here...."??

 

[Big Beer Belly]

Open skies (aka freight nazi, i have a pension):

You actually think, that if open skies becomes reality, your little contract will end up protecting you?? LOL.

Your company will be frothing at the mouth to drop you in favor of cheap foreign pilots any way they can.

Like somebody else said, It'll work both ways. They'll buy some foreign carrier and start bringing them into this country.

After the events of the last 5 years in this industry, how can you actually say "can't happen here...."??

The US currently has open skies agreements with numerous countries. Following your logic, I'm curious why UPS hasn't already replaced most of us?

If you peruse other message boards with a primarily european audience (ex PPRuNe), you'll read exactly the same protectionist sentiments. If anything, I'd say they are more fearful of the onslaught by US carriers than vice-versa.

As far as UPS goes ... from a corporate standpoint they want to remove barriers to trade ... period. More trade = more need for their services = more profit. Many european routes that are currently flown by a european subcontractor for UPS due to route authority restrictions (Star Air) are more expensive to operate than if crewed by IPA pilots. Remember, UPS serves over 200 countries and territories ... many through an expensive patchwork of subcontractors and leased belly space on foreign pax planes due to all the protectionist route restrictions ... this all adds greatly to the cost of moving goods between countries with trade barriers. UPS would love to eliminate the middleman and maintain operational control over the movement of goods along their entire route.

An off topic consideration: more countries engaged in cross border trade and more interdependent on that trade for economic and social stability has the added benefit of reducing the potential for armed conflict between highly dependent trading partners ... so goes the thinking that paid thinkers think about at think tanks.

BBB