US airlines losing ground to overseas rivals

A perusal of this year’s winners’ lists at the World Airline Awards reveals a distinct lack of US carriers. So how did America’s airlines actually stack up against the best of the rest at global aviation’s most prestigious awards?

By all accounts, not well. Of the 23 international categories up for grabs at the awards, which garnered the opinions of more than 18 million air travelers, none were bestowed upon US carriers - as was the case in 2011 and in 2010.

Even Air Canada won Best Airline North America for the third consecutive year.

In the coveted Airline of the Year award, the highest placed US airline was ‘British-born’ low-cost carrier Virgin America, which was ranked 26th.

Alaska Airlines and Southwest Airlines were the next best placed US carriers in 49th and 51st positions respectively, while the highest ranked full-service international carrier was Delta Air Lines in 57th place.

Perhaps even more concerning for US commercial aviation than passenger satisfaction is a domestic tax and regulatory system, which according to airline trade association, Airlines for America (A4A), has made it increasingly difficult to be “sustainably profitable and compete globally”.

Calling on the Senate to support a National Airline Policy to keep American airlines competitive with foreign carriers, A4A president and chief executive Nicholas E. Calio said the United States faced “the very real risk of U.S. airlines increasingly shifting to feeding foreign airlines at our gateways, rather than expanding their flying of lucrative international routes”.

With some US carriers having already reduced capacity to certain international markets - the most profitable part of the business and a subsidizer of many domestic routes - Mr Calio said a further loss of ground to foreign competitors would “take a toll on the larger economy”.

“Airlines enable their local businesses to export goods, connect their residents to the world for business and leisure travel - and, importantly, create good-paying jobs.”

Sourced: etravelblackboardasia