In the opening weeks of the Trump presidency, major U.S.
airlines and their unions have pressed their cases against the Gulf airlines,
against the low-cost transatlantic carrier Norwegian and even against Mexican
discount carriers competing for landing rights in Mexico City.
But despite Trump's leanings toward protectionism, his
administration has given early indications that those seeking a clampdown on
foreign air carriers won't always get what they want.
The president himself offered at least tepid, though
unspecific support for foreign air carriers as he kicked off a Feb. 9 breakfast
meeting with executives of several U.S. commercial and cargo airlines.
"I know you're
under pressure from a lot of foreign elements and foreign carriers," he
told the executives. "I've been hearing that a little bit. At the same
time, we want to make life good for them also. They come with big investments.
In many cases, those investments are made by their governments, but they are
still big investments."
While those remarks left plenty of room for interpretation,
they came just two days after White House press secretary Sean Spicer dealt a
blow to legacy carriers Delta, United and American as well as their allies at
major industry labor unions by expressing support for Norwegian Air
International (NAI), the Irish subsidiary of Norwegian Air Group that was
awarded a foreign air-carrier permit in the closing weeks of the Obama
administration.
"There is a huge economic interest that America has in
that deal right now," Spicer said of Norwegian during his Feb. 7 daily
press briefing. He referenced Norwegian's plan to purchase more than 100 Boeing
aircraft, as well as the carrier's commitment to staff its U.S.-Europe routes
with 50% U.S. workers.
Unions and the legacy carriers argue that Norwegian's
decision to operate out of Ireland is intended to skirt Norway's tougher labor
laws. With Trump's entry into office, Norwegian's opponents have redoubled
their fight, filing an appeal of the NAI approval and making a separate
political push for Trump to revoke the permit.
That effort isn't the only attempt that major U.S. airlines
are making to appeal to Trump's "America First" agenda.
Legacy carriers and their union allies have also stepped up
efforts to persuade the U.S. government to clamp down on the Gulf carriers
Emirates, Etihad and Qatar, which they accuse of accepting more than $50
billion in state subsidies since 2004, in violation of international open skies
aviation treaties. The Gulf carriers deny that charge.
The CEOs of the Big Three have requested a meeting with
secretary of state Rex Tillerson to discuss the open skies dispute.
In an interview last week, Jill Zuckman, chief spokeswoman
for the Partnership for Fair & Open Skies, which comprises the Big Three as
well as seven airline unions, said the group senses an opportunity now that
Trump is in office.
"Now we have a president who has really made his
platform about enforcing trade agreements and standing up for American workers,"
she said.
But as with the Norwegian battle, there are signals that the
Trump team won't prove to be receptive. At his confirmation hearing on Jan. 18,
commerce secretary-designee Wilbur Ross declared himself "a big proponent"
of open skies.
That assertion might not bother the legacy airlines too
much, since they make it clear that they support 118 of the 120 U.S. open skies
agreements. But air carriers that oppose the push for sanctions against the
Gulf airlines, including JetBlue and FedEx, argue that such sanctions would
themselves be an open skies violation.
Southwest, which has steered clear of both the Norwegian and
open skies disputes, has also appealed to nationalism in the opening weeks of
Trump's presidency. Southwest is competing with JetBlue and Alaska as well as
with the Mexican carriers Volaris, Viva Aerobus and Interjet for landing rights
that Delta and Aeromexico are being forced to give up at Mexico City's Benito
Juarez Airport as part of an antitrust-immunity deal between those two airlines
in December
In a Jan. 31 filing, Southwest urged the DOT to fulfill all
of the U.S. carriers' landing rights requests before doling out any to the
Mexican airlines.