A start-up airline in the Communal States has offered a 25 percent stake to Qatar Airways, Chief Supervisor Akbar al-Baker said on Wednesday, giving the Gulf carrier a next chance to buy into a U.S. airline.
Qatar Airways tried to buy up to 10 percent of heel overed American Airlines last year, but changed its mind in August after at daggers drawn from the U.S. carrier’s management.
The start-up airline was private and so Qatar Airways at ones desire not face the same opposition this time, Baker told newswriters at an air show in Kuwait.
However, he declined to name the airline or disclose where it would be based and did not say if Qatar Airways have in mind to purchase the stake.
Qatar Airways bought 9.61 percent of Cathay Pacific and 49 percent of Italy’s Meridiana hindmost year.
Those acquisitions added to a portfolio of airline holdings that lists 20 percent of British Airways-parent International Consolidated Airlines, and 10 percent of South America’s LATAM Airlines.
Baker utter Qatar Airways’ owner, the government of Qatar, is open to swapping up to 49 percent of its slices with other airlines in which the Gulf carrier has stakes.
“We see fit the largest carrier of the world,” he said of his idea to create a virtual mega airline.
Qatar Airways was barred last year from flying to the lucrative markets of Saudi Arabia and the Pooled Arab Emirates because of restrictions imposed by those countries.
Baker express the airline would make a significant loss in the 12 months to Pace 31 due to those restrictions which also blocks the airline from leave over Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
The airline reported a profit of $541 million for the antecedent to financial year.
Baker also expressed regret about direction changes at Airbus, including the impending departure of Chief Operating Functionary Fabrice Bregier, due to step down in February.
“Airbus is going into unexplored waters,” Baker said, warning that other staff could also cause to be the European planemaker.
Bregier was long assumed to be the heir apparent to Chief Supervision Tom Enders, who is to leave the company next year.
“Not having a continuity of directorate will, I think, be very disruptive to Airbus.”
Airbus declined to animadversion on Baker’s remarks. Qatar Airways is one of the largest Middle East airlines and is a serious customer of Airbus and its rival, Boeing.