Chilly winds blowing between airlines as their rivalries heat up

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Airlines might be having a better time of it, with a broadly improved economy and low fuel prices, but the fighting seems to have got worse. Last week the CEO of Air France hit back at Dutch bitching with an open letter in the largest Dutch business newspaper. “The idea that KLM feels all the pain and that Air France isn’t doing anything is completely wrong and a blow to the whole group’s 95,000 employees,” he wrote. This was a response to Dutch anger that the group had been considering using KLM’s €1bn operating profit for ‘group purposes’ –  reportedly to plug a hole in Air France’s losses.

Over in the Gulf, Emirates’ chairman has effectively told US carriers to stop whining and start offering their customers a better service if they want their passengers back. And, he noted, when the free-skies agreement was first implemented, on US insistence, “they never expected that airlines will come out of this part of the world that will challenge them”. Expect this one to run and run.