How American Airlines And Qatar Airways Swerved From Bitter Enemies To Best Friends

How American Airlines And Qatar Airways Swerved From Bitter Enemies To Best Friends

This is a BETA experience. You may opt-out by Qatar Airways CEO Akbar Al Baker supervises workers loading 300 ton of medical supplies onto a cargo ... [+] flight from Doha to India in May. (Photo by Karim Jaafar) Pandemics make strange bedfellows. In particular, American Airlines and Qatar Airways have become chummy, moving far beyond the mutual enmity they displayed during most of the second half of the last decade, when they battled over the subsidized Middle East carriers' access to U. S. markets. Last week, American Chief Revenue Officer Vasu Raja said Qatar has "very quickly become our longest long-haul codeshare partner." Why the reversal? Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants, says things changed after Qatar CEO Akbar Al Baker agreed to "play by the rules (because) nothing else worked. "When you play by the rules you get to play with everyone in the play yard," Nelson said in an interview. Whatever the reason, Qatar and Al Baker seems to have emerged from the conflict better off than when they started. In May, he was named CEO of the Oneworld global airline alliance, which is anchored by American and British Airways. Meanwhile, Qatar has been