Curiosidade do dia

Nestes tempos de greve na TAP, é interessante ler artigos como este "Super-connecting the world".

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Quando dizemos, quando percepcionamos a mudança que vai no mundo, não é só no desenvolvimento de novos modelos de negócio, não é só na vertigem da inovação tecnológica. É também no papel cada vez mais secundário que o asilo europeu vai entranhando na sua identidade:

"A decade ago Emirates, Qatar Airways and Etihad Airways, based in Abu Dhabi, were insignificant. But these three “super-connectors”, in recent years joined by Turkish Airlines, increasingly dominate long-haul routes between Europe and Asia.
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Last year the four carriers flew about 115m people into and out of their hubs in the Gulf or Istanbul, compared with 50m in 2008. Their combined fleet has swollen to more than 700 aircraft and they have a further 900 or so on order.
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Europe’s struggling national airlines, such as Lufthansa and Air France KLM (AF-KLM), were among the first to start losing market share to the super- connectors. They are now suffering the same devastation on long-haul routes that low- cost carriers (LCCs) like Ryanair and EasyJet have inflicted on their shorter routes. As Andrew Charlton of Aviation Advocacy, a consulting firm, puts it: “The LCCs ate European airlines’ lunch; the Gulf carriers are coming to eat their dinner.” Lufthansa says its Frankfurt hub has lost nearly a third of its market share on routes between Europe and Asia since 2005, with more than 3m people now flying annually from Germany to other destinations via Gulf hubs.
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Now the grumbling is getting louder from across the Atlantic, as America’s airlines begin to feel the heat. This week a lobby group backed by Delta, American and United Airlines released documents to back up a report it put out in February, accusing the three Gulf carriers of having been given $42 billion in assistance by their state owners in the past decade.
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If anything, matters can only get worse for the legacy carriers. If Norwegian makes a go of low-cost transatlantic flights, Ryanair and others will pile in. China’s huge, state- backed airlines are surely planning to boost their market share on Pacific routes. And the high profits that America’s airlines have recently been enjoying at home are likely to encourage the expansion of low-cost carriers there. In all, the future looks poor for investors in the legacy airlines. For travellers, however, the age of cheap flying is set to go on and on."