eta unknown wrote:I'm having trouble following your questions, so let me say this: the US does regulate bilaterals if a non-open skies policy exists, so wouldn't the easy answer be to look up what the agreement was between US & Qatar/UAE before open skies was signed?
Turkey: I'm in the camp that doesn't include them as an after thought to the ME3. Turkey has enough O&D to justify their own flights and dare I say- TK's existence.
If you want to know what the world was like before the ME3 , I'll take you back to the 80's when KU operated JFK-KWI (3x via LHR, 1x via FRA) with 747's. Having flown the transatlantic sector numerous times with them I can tell you that 90% of the KWI traffic was actually transit to BOM/DEL which is really what the ME3 is all about now.
I'll try rephrasing.
Before COVID, US carriers didn't have many Middle East or India flights, instead letting the ME4 or codeshare connections (e.g. AA/QR, UA/TK) take all that connecting traffic. What if they took a page out of Canada's book and limited bilaterals such that US airlines could compete?
I'll give Air Canada as an example. The Canadian government did not give the UAE full Open Skies rights because they wanted Air Canada to compete with Emirates and Etihad. They also didn't want EK/EY hogging up all the connecting traffic between southern Ontario and India. Limiting the UAE to six flights a week, with no one airline having more than three weekly flights, allowed Air Canada to build up its MENASA network from YYZ and YUL: YYZ-DXB, YYZ-DEL, YYZ-BOM among others. Emirates was able to fly 3 weekly A380s to YYZ and Etihad got 3 weekly 77Ws (formerly 346s) to YYZ.
While I have praised the ME4 for their superior hard and soft product to Air Canada's, I will begrudgingly admit that keeping them out of YVR has allowed for a more diverse array of longhaul carriers, and is better for YVR as a whole. On the Atlantic side we got BA (including A380s in summer), LH (including MUC in summer), KLAF, LX in summer; on the Pacific side there's JL, NH, CX, KE, CA/MU/CZ, BR/CI, MF, 3U, JD, HU, before the Hong Kong crisis we had HX as well. And eventually a nonstop YVR-DEL flight, though it took until more 787-9s arrived in 2016 to make it viable. I doubt it would have been this diverse if Emirates or Etihad were allowed to have daily/double daily A380s or 77Ws to YVR.
Let's say the US negotiated bilaterals with the UAE and Qatar, and just for the sake of argument, Turkey. (given TK's connections to Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and subsaharan Africa/southern Indian Ocean destinations like MRU/SEZ/ADD/JNB/CPT/DUR...) Which US destinations would Emirates choose given limited bilaterals? How about Etihad, or Qatar Airways? Which MENASA (= Middle East, North Africa, South Asia) destinations would United have if there weren't multiple daily ME4 77Ws/A380s serving SFO/LAX/ORD/EWR/IAH? Ditto with Delta if the ME4 didn't have unlimited rights to ATL/SEA/JFK, or American with ORD/JFK/DFW/MIA.
Also, would it be possible for the US3 to have bases in DXB, AUH, DOH or IST for 5th freedom hops, much like United and Northwest's Pacific networks pre-2008 GFC? Say just as examples:
UA901/902 ORD-DXB-BOM
UA903/904 SFO-DXB-BLR
UA905/906 SEA-DXB-DEL
UA907/908 IAD-DXB-KWI
Likewise, Istanbul could be used as a UA forward hub. EWR-IST-BLR, SFO-IST-MRU, IAD-IST-ADD, the possibilities are endless.
This is all assuming the QR/AA/AS tie-up didn't happen, of course!