Open skies agreements are simply agreements between two countries allowing each others air carriers to conduct international flights into the country without the significant government hassle and time consuming procedures they would have to go through normally without the agreement (State 2016). These carriers can be airlines or cargo companies. In class we talked about two middle eastern countries specifically that have long haul government subsidized airlines conducting international flights into the U.S. These countries are the  United Arab Emirates and Qatar; both of which have open skies agreements with the U.S.

The bottom line is that American carriers argue the UAE airlines are unfairly advantaged because they are government subsidized. They argue that our airlines receive no government funding and any foreign airline that does is not on an even and level playing field therefore making the open skies agreement unfair to companies such as Delta and American Airlines. The counter argument coming from the UAE and Qatar is that U.S. carriers such as Delta are in fact government subsidized because they have received bailout money from the government as early as 2002. What the argument is boiling down to is the definition of "government subsidizing" as it relates to airlines in specific countries. Its very simple: the big three in the U.S. say UAE and Qatar are unfairly advantaged due to their respective government funding and UAE and Qatar say the big three arent one to talk because they have received government funding also even if it has been through an indirect government bailout plan.

Another complaint of the big three U.S. airlines is that foreign carriers have yet another unfair advantage in that they can purchase American manufactured jets such as Boeing aircraft for reduced overall prices due to reduced interest rates. Foreign companies have the ability to do this because of the Export Import Bank.  Some domestic airlines with international flights such as Delta argue that if they can purchase planes for less they can lower ticket prices and be more "unfairly" competitive. Basically the  Export-Import Bank tries to make it easier for foreign companies to buy U.S. manufactured products in order to keep American company manufacturing jobs on our soil and help sustain our economy. In the example we're discussing the Export-Import Bank makes it easier for UAE airlines to buy Boeing Aircraft made on U.S. soil by giving loans with lower interest rates than airlines such as Delta could ever get.

I personally feel that the global playing field of long haul air carriers is very unfair. I also feel that absolutely everything else in life is unfair. The reality is that there will always be unfair advantages and disadvantages for all parties involved. We can do our best to make it more "fair" but it will never be perfectly fair. I think the most unfair part of this topic is the Export-Import bank issue, but Boeing will tell you that this helps them sell a lot of jets which creates American job opportunities and helps sustain our economy (Crawford 2016). There are opportunity costs for every decision. However if I was Delta I'd be very upset that an American company like Boeing right next door sells their jets cheaper to foreign countries then they will to me. It's not that simple but with the Export-Import bank as the middle man that's basically what happens.  The whole situation is obviously unfair for competition among long haul air carriers foreign and domestic but I wouldn't say it's such a bad thing. I would just say it's more of the normal way that business in general works throughout the world.

References

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/boeing-ceo-losing-export-import-bank-means-loss-of-jobs/, Jan Crawford, 11-26-15, retrieved on 11-2-16

http://www.state.gov/e/eb/tra/ata/, U.S. Departemtn of State, Open Skies Agreemt, retrieved on 11-3-16