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shacklesburst · 6 years

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Let’s talk about Miles

(no, not the Vorkosigan one)

Reward miles, or whatever they’re called by the airline of your choosing (my personal favorites: Qatar Airlines Qmiles, because they make you think of Qbits and lead to, like, entangled airplanes or some such; and Avianca’s Lifemiles, because that just sound like after you spent your last mile, you’re just going to drop (out of the air) dead) have become somewhat of a special interest of mine recently. So I thought I’d share what I’ve learned so far. Disclaimer: this post is written mostly from the European perspective, where carrier imposed surcharges (YQ/YR) are much higher than in the US and usually make up 80% of the price of an economy ticket.

Reward Miles - who are they for?

Even if you think gathering miles for flights will never really lead to anything -- because aren’t those just for constant business class flying jet setters? --, having a basic understanding of how miles work could save you some money in the long run regardless.

What’s a normal mile worth? Well, that depends very much on how you’re going to spend it and how you’re flying at the moment. Miles used for first class flights generally bring in the most, and that’s across the industry, but that just means that for the first class tickets you’d like to have, it’ll only cost you $3k instead of $8k, which doesn’t really help that much if the same ticket in coach is available for $500 (especially if those 500 are already straining your budget). Which immediately brings us to what is true for much of the economy:

miles are worth most to rich people flying business and up a lot

miles are worth quite a bit to moderately well-off people who want to fly business and up at least on long-hauls

miles are worth very little if the cheapest economy ticket is usually the only one you can afford

However, they’re basically never worth nothing. Using miles instead of cash might only save you a few bucks per flight, but there are hardly any flights where using miles doesn’t leave you any better off.

What can be done if you have them?

But first, lets get into some of the really cool things you could do if you just had a few miles lying around in your frequent traveler account.

Even if you’re usually not in the running for that sweet $8k private suite above the skies, flying first once, even if it’s just for the experience itself, isn’t actually that far out of reach for most people. Most airlines have various sweet spots where flying in the upper classes using miles approaches premium economy costs for the same distance. The bad thing about that is that those flights are usually starting somewhere you ain’t and lead to where you don’t wanna be. But if you ever find yourself in need of going from Frankfurt to Bahrain via Dammam somewhen between 14 to 3 days from now, that flight in Lufthansa First, including access to the FRA LH First Terminal and Lounge, including being brought directly to the airplane with a limousine driven by a chaffeur can be had ... for about €800 ($930 at current rates). Without ever having to have gotten any mile with any airline before!

Obviously some hacks need to be applied for this to work. First of all, you wouldn’t book that flight through Lufthansa’s own frequent flyer program. Instead, you’d use a Star Alliance partner, in this example KrisFlyer (the Singapore Airlines rewards miles program), where that flight would cost you 35k KrisFlyer miles + taxes and fees (about €200). Now, how to get those KrisFlyer miles if you’re not usually flying Singapore Airlines?

So how do I get them?

Many airlines actually just sell miles! For cash! Miles usually cost anything from 2¢ to 4¢, and depending on use case, they’re worth something between 2¢ to (in extreme cases like this example) 8-10¢. One of the most common sweet spots, flying business on specific long hauls, typically lead to mile yields of about 4¢ a mile. Buying miles at prices below 1.5¢ is almost always worth it, as long as you use them up pretty fast after that. Once bought, you cannot get back your cash’s worth again outside the specific usages the airline will have for the miles. Many airlines also sell miles at lower prices multiple times a year, so a wait and see approach (and never buying miles at the non-discounted rates) will lead to more yield.

Then there’s always promotions for (most notably) credit cards, insurance policies and the like, where getting a new card will net you some miles. Obviously there are associated costs with those promotions as well, but it doesn’t hurt anything grabbing any miles that come with something you needed to get anyways. Then the effective cost of a mile obviously approaches zero and they basically turn into free money.

The most common way shouldn’t be entirely forgotten either: flying and paying full price for your tickets, netting you some award miles. This is most useful if somebody else is paying that ticket price for you, though, because as outlined above, you can almost always save at least some money by exclusively using reward flights for all your needs.

Why don’t the airlines stop this?

So, by now we’ve basically realized that miles aren’t that hard to come by, and using them virtually always undercuts the regular ticket price. So shouldn’t airlines make it harder for people to use miles to their advantage? If everybody had to pay the regular ticket price all the time, the airline surely would net more money?

Yes and no. The airline would make more money if it really sold all those seats at their usual rates all the time. Even with all the talk about overbooked flights, they don’t really, though. I’ve been on planes with hardly any people on them before and airlines know how to make especially those routes they can’t fill that well attractive for people with some miles. That way they at least get some money, even if it’s not full price. (As for why more airlines don’t go for the easier route of lowering official ticket prices then? I don’t really know. Probably a combination of marketing strategy, tradition (also everybody else is doing it) and the limits of the algorithms that determine seat pricing nowadays.

Also, reward programs are designed to be hard to understand and effectively navigate. Most people will collect miles by activities where a single mile costs them more than the “ideal” 1-2¢ cents and spend them in ways that will net them much less per mile. Research into them takes time (and it’s really not enough to just know stuff about one program ... it really helps being familiar with multiple) and mental capacity, along with the opportunity costs associated with those activities. It’s hardly worth it for the airline to fill every last loophole when none but a few insistent people ever take advantage of those. And even then the advantages are certainly noticeable for the single traveler, but you almost never get to fly for literally nothing.

So, now for how to get the most out of your miles.

What airlines hate: flexibility.

Lufthansa has a special program for redeeming miles called mileage bargains (German: Meilenschnäppchen). With that program, you pay only about half miles for rewards flights on routes that Lufthansa chooses monthly. A non-stop return business flight to Asia (the farthest awards region Lufthansa has) would only cost you 70k miles under a mileage bargain. Let’s assume a regular buying price of about 1¢ per mile now. This is an average assuming that some of those miles were accumulated through promotions for stuff you’d have bought anyways, or that you transferred from another rewards program (eg a credit card rewards program where you collect points just for getting your regular groceries). So some of those miles literally didn’t cost you anything, and others probably cost you a bit above 1¢.

Then the 70k miles “cost” you about €700. Add to that taxes and carrier imposed surcharges of about €500 for a flight to Asia and we’re coming out at about €1200 for a business class return flight, lounge access in Frankfurt or Munich included on the ticket. If you have an Amex Platinum, that business class ticket will even be enough not only for the business class lounges but for the Senator/HON Circle/Star Alliance Gold lounges. (Lounges come with free food and showers, among other things, so lounge access at an airport should have assigned a value of at least 30-40€ per visit. Which is incidentally just about what paid lounge access usually costs.)

The same return flight would regularly come out in excess of €2800. Regular cheapest economy will come out at around €700. So we’ve just reduced the ticket price by about 58%, or, coming from the economy ticket, for less than double the price of our ticket we’ve just upgraded significantly and will travel much more comfortable for the more than 10 hours our flight’s gonna take to Hong Kong, Seoul or Tokyo (and back).

The catch: in September 2018 that mileage bargain is available to Tokyo and Osaka. Last month, it was only Osaka. Hong Kong and Seoul aren’t available at all this month. There’s also no destination available in Middle or South America this time. There’s almost always something available in North America, but one month it might be Chicago, and the next it’s NY.

The second catch: Lufthansa tells me I can only book that flight when I’m willing to go sometime between January 1, 2019 and February 15, 2019. Availability isn’t guaranteed for any specific dates (though it is in general pretty good, especially at the start of the month just after new bargains were released).

That’s why I named this section after the fact that airlines hate flexibility. Both in the sense that they’re setting very inflexible targets when there’s a bargain to be had for a customer. And that there’s always a bargain to be had if you’re flexible and either want to really go in that time frame, but don’t care so much where to. Or you know where you want to go and don’t much care about the specific time frame, so you can just wait one or two months until your preferred destination pops up under a bargain and then book it.

(Which nicely ties into that first class flight to Bahrain that we talked about in the intro. If you don’t care to end up in Bahrain, take that plane and enjoy first class. But for people on a schedule and no business in Bahrain, that flight obviously doesn’t have much value. And so even €800 would be too much to pay.)

Conclusion (for the time being)

This post is already pretty long, so I’m gonna cut off here. I’d be interested in any asks that come up and if I should expand this into a series. I’m guessing there are probably a lot of resources for stuff like this already, but the more I’m finding out, the more I want to share of course. Read and review, I guess. (Damn, I really should write more fanfic.)

#effortpost #mine #let's talk about miles

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bigyack-com · 4 years

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Air India No Longer Available on Sabre GDS

Sabre has confirmed that flight and fare content from the troubled airline, Air India, is no longer available through its GDS system. The two companies have been partners for over 20 years.

Kristin Hays, vice president – global communications for Sabre, said, “We are very disappointed that Air India decided to withdraw from Sabre. We believe that access to Sabre’s global network of travel agencies provides great value to Air India. We have worked with Air India for the better part of a year to reach a new agreement, in anticipation of the existing contract expiring and after receiving a termination notice from the carrier. Unfortunately, after extensive negotiations, we have been unable to come to a new agreement. Our teams will continue to work with Air India to finalize an agreement that meets the needs of Sabre, Air India and travel buyers.” The Indian airline has been looking for a new investor since 2018 and speculation is rife over whether the airline will be able to remain in business. “Sabre remains committed to GDS agreements that meet our airline customers’ unique needs while also balancing the needs of the travel buyers who rely on Sabre for robust travel content,” added Ms. Hays. See latest Travel News, Interviews, Podcasts and other news regarding: Air India, Sabre. Headlines: Vietjet Takes Delivery of Two More Airbus Aircraft Two Executive Appointments at Bombardier Aviation Air India No Longer Available on Sabre GDS Thailand Targets Tourism Revenue of 3.18 Trillion Baht in 2020 Pictures from Ascot United vs Banstead Athletic on 4 Jan 2020 Gen Z - Airbnb's Fastest Growing Market for Experiences in Asia Pacific Air Canada Takes Delivery of First Airbus A220-300 AirAsia Launches Flights Between Kuala Lumpur and Dalat, Vietnam Cebu Pacific Orders 15 Airbus Aircraft, Including Up To 10 A321XLRs American Airlines and Royal Air Maroc to Codeshare New Immigration Requirements to Help Solomon Islands Fight Measles Vietjet Launches Danang - Singapore Flights American Express GBT Forecasts Stable Air Prices in 2020 Etihad and Kuwait Airways to Codeshare PAG and Inmark Purchase Grand Hyatt Seoul British Airways and Iberia Achieve IATA NDC @Scale Certification Air Caraïbes Takes Delivery of First A350-1000 Aman Signs Fourth Resort in Japan Hamilton to Host HSBC New Zealand Sevens 25-26 January 2020 Thales' New Touchscreen Cockpit Displays Now Available on Airbus A350s Mongolian Airlines to Expand Network with Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner British Airways to Trial AI-Powered Robots at London Heathrow Dusit Thani Resort Opens in Shuangyue Bay, China Six Senses Signs First Hotel in UK Mandarin Oriental to Take Over Emirates Palace in Abu Dhabi Cebu Pacific Offering Passengers Roaming WiFi Kits Air France Orders 60 Airbus A220-300 Aircraft Sindhorn Midtown Hotel in Bangkok Appoints Jee Hoong Tan as GM British Airways to Launch LHR Flights to Portland, USA Braathens Takes Delivery of First of Five New ATR 72-600s Cebu Pacific Joins IATA Thailand: Airbnb Adds Saraburi to Beyond Big Cities Campaign New International Rugby Sevens Competition to be Launched in February Sindhorn Midtown Hotel in Bangkok Appoints Nicha Ruenthip as DOSM Qatar Airways to Launch Flights to Santorini and Dubrovnik British Airways Signs Joint Business Agreement with China Southern Air Canada Rouge Completes In-Flight Wi-Fi Installation Saab Wins Order for Digital Air Traffic Towers in Netherlands Whitbread Secures Fourth Premier Inn Hotel in Dublin, Ireland Amman to Host CAPA Middle East & Africa Aviation Summit 2020 Boeing to Suspend Production of 737 MAX Cathay Pacific's Inbound Hong Kong Traffic Down 46% in November Singapore Airlines to Launch Flights to Brussels, Belgium Wego Signs Retailing Agreement with ATPCO GTR Opens Air Cargo Hub at KLIA Air Cargo Terminal 1 Bombardier Uses SAF to Deliver Challenger 350 to Latitude 33 Aviation Swiss-Belhotel Signs First Hotel in Malaysia Czech Air Force Orders Two More Airbus C295 Aircraft New Boeing-Built Satellite to Orbit Over Asia Pacific Third Four Points by Sheraton Hotel Opens in Malaysia Hong Kong Airport Reports Further Drop in Pax, Cargo and Flights Air Canada Launches Flights Between Vancouver and Auckland, New Zealand Andaz Macau Appoints Chikako Shimizu as GM Cathay Pacific to Take Over Air New Zealand's Auckland-Hong Kong Service Four Seasons Opens Second Luxury Resort in Megeve, France Ireland's Department of Defence Orders Two Airbus C295 Aircraft Best Western Plus Opens in Nairobi, Kenya Qatar Airways Launches Flights to Gaborone, Botswana Korean Air to Revamp SkyPass Frequent Flyer Program Embraer E175-E2 Performs Maiden Flight Charlie Sullivan Joins CWT's Air Distribution Team Marriott Opens Third Sheraton Hotel in Beijing, China Radisson Blu Opens Resort in Cam Ranh, Vietnam Qantas Chooses Airbus A350-1000 for Ultra Long-Haul Flights Executive Appointments at Banyan Tree BA to Launch LHR Flights to Six New European Destinations in 2020 Korean Air to Revamp SkyPass Frequent Flyer Program Embraer E175-E2 Performs Maiden Flight Charlie Sullivan Joins CWT's Air Distribution Team Marriott Opens Third Sheraton Hotel in Beijing, China Radisson Blu Opens Resort in Cam Ranh, Vietnam Qantas Chooses Airbus A350-1000 for Ultra Long-Haul Flights Executive Appointments at Banyan Tree BA to Launch LHR Flights to Six New European Destinations in 2020 How Technology is Shaping Airports of the Future FCM and Flight Centre Achieve NDC Level 4 Certification Dusit Rebrands Luxury Resort in Philippines Emirates Launches Flights to Mexico via Barcelona Air Canada's First Airbus A220-300 Completes Maiden Flight FAA Certifies ExecuJet MRO Malaysia to Work on Dassault Jets AirAsia Launches Snap Air France-KLM Orders 10 A350-900 Aircraft Bundeswehr Takes Delivery of First Airbus H145 SAR Helicopter Drew Crawley to Join American Express Global Business Travel as CCO Cape Town 7s 2019 to Take Place 13-15 December Congo Airways to Replace Dash 8-400s with Embraer E175 Aircraft Ascent Solutions Installs Two E-Gates at NAIA 2 Departures Michel Poussau Appointed GM of Rugby World Cup 2023 Wetherspoon to Invest £200 Million Developing New Pubs and Hotels IATA Asks EU to Support Sustainable Aviation Fuel Transition Boeing Delivers First Modified MV-22 Osprey to United States Marine Corps Marriott Signs Six Hotels in India Accor to Rebrand Hotel in Queensland, Australia MHG Signs Two Hotels in Doha, Qatar Vietjet Launches Flights to New Delhi from Hanoi and Saigon SKY Signs Purchase Agreement for 10 Airbus A321XLRs British Airways Trials 3D Printing SAS' First A350 to Enter Long-Haul Service on 28 January Air Italy and Oman Air Sign Codeshare Agreement ACH and Aston Martin to Unveil 'New Creation' in January Qantas Signs FFP Agreement with Air France - KLM Group Malaysia Airlines Launches Shuttle Fares on Flights Between KL and Singapore Accor to Open 125-Room Mercure Hotel in Canberra in January Openings Push Australia's Hotel Inventory to Over 300,000 Rooms Alban Dutemple Appointed Cluster GM of Two Hotels in Bahrain Air New Zealand Trials Edible Coffee Cups Manchester Airport Unveils Details of £1 Billion Transformation South Africa Beat New Zealand to Win Dubai Sevens Aviation: RPKs Up 3.4% in October 2019 China Airlines to Launch Flights Between Taipei and Cebu, Philippines Marriott Adds North Island Seychelles to Luxury Collection Trenchard Aviation Appoints Neil Watkins as Group DOSM J. Scott Kirby to Succeed Oscar Munoz as CEO of United Airlines Vietjet to Launch Hanoi - Bali Flights London Stansted to Host CAPA World Aviation Outlook Summit 2020 JW Marriott Hotel Bangkok Completes Renovation Air Freight: FTKs Down 3.5% in October; APAC Down 5.3% Carl Volschenk Joins Sheraton Grand Danang as GM American Airlines Adds Passport Chip Scanning to Mobile App TCEB Partners Thai Airways to Launch APAC MaxiMICE Campaign United Airlines Orders 50 Airbus A321XLR Aircraft Four Seasons Signs First Hotel in New Orleans Aman Venice Appoints Norbert Niederkofler as Consultant Chef Bombardier to Relocate Global Aircraft Production Airbus Appoints New Communications Leadership Team Malaysia and Turkish Airlines Sign Codeshare Agreement Marco Violano Joins Four Seasons Jakarta as Executive Chef World's First Zest OK Youth Hotel Opens in New Zealand Dubai Sevens Set to Kick Off 2020 Season Boeing to Give $48 Million to Over 400 Global Charitable Organizations Dusit Thani Hua Hin Completes First Phase of Renovation British & Irish Lions' Itinerary for 2021 Tour of South Africa Airbus Signs Global Support Contract for Tiger Helicopters Over 400 Now Connected to Travelport's Rich Content and Branding Qantas Opens First Class Lounge at Changi Airport in Singapore British Airways Empowers Airport Staff to Solve Issues on the Spot Next Story Group Launches New Hotel Brand Air New Zealand Launches Flights Between Christchurch and Singapore Vietjet to Launch Saigon - Pattaya Flights India and Colombia Certify Mi-171A2 from Russian Helicopters Qatar Airways Cargo Unveils Major South America Expansion CWT Meetings & Events Restructures Leadership Team Air France to Operate Flights from San Francisco Using SAF Four Seasons Seychelles Appoints Kevin Lopes as Exec. Pastry Chef Vietjet to Increase Flights Between Vietnam and South Korea Raffles Grand Hotel d'Angkor Opens Khmer Restaurant, 1932 Airbus Celebrates 100th A220 Aircraft Produced CINZ Appoints Lisa Hopkins as Chief Executive Amadeus to Upgrade Travel Experience at Perth Airport in Australia Travelport Makes First API-Connection Bookings for Qantas Using NDC Sustainable Success for Ocean Marina Pattaya Boat Show 2019 Air Corsica Takes Delivery of First Airbus A320neo Aircraft Bangkok Airways Partners Krungthep Limousine in Trat 431-Room Novotel Hotel in Perth to Soft Open on 19 December Malaysia Airlines Launches New In-Flight Services GICC Macau Appoints Joey Pather as Senior Vice President - MICE Renaissance Hotel Opens in Xiamen, China Finnair Partners Chef DeAille Tam for New Business Class Menu Simon Barnett Joins Four Seasons Singapore as Hotel Manager FCM Achieves TMC Elite Level Within SAP Concur Partner Program Club Med to Open Kota Kinabalu Resort in 2022 SAS Takes Delivery of First Airbus A350-900 Seaplanes in Thailand? Interview with Dennis Keller, CBO of Siam Seaplane Seven HD Videos from IATA Airline Industry Retailing Symposium 2019 in Bangkok Vietnam Airlines Signs EngineWise Service Agreement with Pratt & Whitney Future of Airline Distribution and NDC - Interview with Yanik Hoyles, IATA Cambodia Airways Interview with Lucian Hsing, Commercial Director HD Videos and Interviews Podcasts from HD Video Interviews Travel Trade Shows in 2019, 2020 and 2021 High-Res Picture Galleries Travel News Asia - Latest Travel Industry News Read the full article

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far7ak-blog · 5 years

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دلوقتي تقدر تعمل فرحك باقل التكاليف😉 بمركب علنيل ❤ و هتقدر تعزم كل اصحابك و قرايبك 😉😉عشان المركب بتاخد لحد 170 فرد 😉 عشان تعرفو تفاصيل العرض ابعتولنا علي رسايل الصفحه 😉❤ Be different😉❤ Wedding Details 😍😍🙈🙈 #We_care_about_your_wedding_day😉😉😉 Wedding Decoration . Church Decoration . Wedding Cars ( Limousine. Sedan. Capurality ) wedding Invitation . Guest Book . Girbs For reservation Phone ☎️👉01226233104 - 01030979177 Address 🏛 7 Bahrain Street. The Corba. Heliopolis . Cairo Instagram 📸👉 beshoy_wedding_planner #كل_قاعات_مصر_فى_مكان_واحد https://www.instagram.com/p/B3PW5lslloF/?igshid=1kmtyzu8tywsw

#we_care_about_your_wedding_day😉😉😉#كل_قاعات_مصر_فى_مكان_واحد

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travelinghobby · 5 years

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British Airways' newest route is just 54 miles long

British Airways’ newest route is just 54 miles long

From December, British Airways will operate a daily round-trip between two Gulf destinations that are only 54 miles apart and connected by road.

BA is extending its current Heathrow-Bahrain service to Dammam in Saudi Arabia. It is the nearest Saudi city to the island nation of Bahrain, to which it is linked by a causeway.

British Airways currently has a dedicated limousine link meeting its…

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primacarrental · 4 months

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Experience Unrivaled Luxury: Prima Car Rental's Elite Chauffeur and Limousine Services in Bahrain

Discover unparalleled elegance with Prima Car Rental, offering the epitome of luxury in chauffeur and limousine services across Bahrain. Elevate your journeys with our exclusive fleet and expert chauffeurs, ensuring a refined and stylish travel experience tailored to your every need.

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limo-wide · 1 year

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Book your Limo or Airport Taxi, Hotel & City transfers with Limowide in Bahrain. We will offer you a comfortable journey, nice and clean car, 24x7 customer care service etc. For booking contact or email us" #bookalimo #bookatransfer #booktaxi #taxiairport #chauffeur #chauffeurservice #limousine #privatetaxi #citytransfer #groundtransportation #ride #airport #airporttransfer #transfers #limousine #limoservice #personaldriver #viptransfer #bahraintaxi #bahrainlimo

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ichlimobahrain-blog · 5 years

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Book Limousine in Bahrain

Each day, ICH LIMO SERVICE connects thousands of passengers with a vast network of licensed and insured professional drivers. We offer the most reliable professional driver service at the most competitive rates.

Get more info: http://www.ichlimobahrain.com/our-vehicles

#Bahrain Limousine #Bahrain Limo #Bahrain Taxi

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bigyack-com · 4 years

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Vietjet Launches Danang - Singapore Flights

Vietjet has launched direct flights between Danang and Changi Airport in Singapore. The airline will operate the Danang - Singapore route on a daily basis. The flight from Danang is scheduled to depart at 12:20 and arrive in Singapore at 15:55. The return flight is timed to leave Changi at 10:50 and arrive in Danang at 12:30.

With the addition of this new route, Vietjet now operates three direct routes between Singapore and Vietnam, connecting Singapore to Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh (Saigon) and Danang. Last week, Vietjet also launched daily return flights linking Danang with Taipei and Hong Kong. With the three new routes, Vietjet now operates a total of 12 routes from Danang with domestic flights to Ho Chi Minh, Hanoi, Hai Phong, Can Tho, and Nha Trang, and international flights to Singapore, Tokyo (Haneda), Seoul, Daegu, Bangkok, Taipei and Hong Kong. See latest Travel News, Interviews, Podcasts and other news regarding: Vietjet, Changi, Singapore, Danang. Headlines: Gen Z - Airbnb's Fastest Growing Market for Experiences in Asia Pacific Air Canada Takes Delivery of First Airbus A220-300 AirAsia Launches Flights Between Kuala Lumpur and Dalat, Vietnam Cebu Pacific Orders 15 Airbus Aircraft, Including Up To 10 A321XLRs American Airlines and Royal Air Maroc to Codeshare New Immigration Requirements to Help Solomon Islands Fight Measles Vietjet Launches Danang - Singapore Flights American Express GBT Forecasts Stable Air Prices in 2020 Etihad and Kuwait Airways to Codeshare PAG and Inmark Purchase Grand Hyatt Seoul British Airways and Iberia Achieve IATA NDC @Scale Certification Air Caraïbes Takes Delivery of First A350-1000 Aman Signs Fourth Resort in Japan Hamilton to Host HSBC New Zealand Sevens 25-26 January 2020 Thales' New Touchscreen Cockpit Displays Now Available on Airbus A350s Mongolian Airlines to Expand Network with Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner British Airways to Trial AI-Powered Robots at London Heathrow Dusit Thani Resort Opens in Shuangyue Bay, China Six Senses Signs First Hotel in UK Mandarin Oriental to Take Over Emirates Palace in Abu Dhabi Cebu Pacific Offering Passengers Roaming WiFi Kits Air France Orders 60 Airbus A220-300 Aircraft Sindhorn Midtown Hotel in Bangkok Appoints Jee Hoong Tan as GM British Airways to Launch LHR Flights to Portland, USA Braathens Takes Delivery of First of Five New ATR 72-600s Cebu Pacific Joins IATA Thailand: Airbnb Adds Saraburi to Beyond Big Cities Campaign New International Rugby Sevens Competition to be Launched in February Sindhorn Midtown Hotel in Bangkok Appoints Nicha Ruenthip as DOSM Qatar Airways to Launch Flights to Santorini and Dubrovnik British Airways Signs Joint Business Agreement with China Southern Air Canada Rouge Completes In-Flight Wi-Fi Installation Saab Wins Order for Digital Air Traffic Towers in Netherlands Whitbread Secures Fourth Premier Inn Hotel in Dublin, Ireland Amman to Host CAPA Middle East & Africa Aviation Summit 2020 Boeing to Suspend Production of 737 MAX Cathay Pacific's Inbound Hong Kong Traffic Down 46% in November Singapore Airlines to Launch Flights to Brussels, Belgium Wego Signs Retailing Agreement with ATPCO GTR Opens Air Cargo Hub at KLIA Air Cargo Terminal 1 Bombardier Uses SAF to Deliver Challenger 350 to Latitude 33 Aviation Swiss-Belhotel Signs First Hotel in Malaysia Czech Air Force Orders Two More Airbus C295 Aircraft New Boeing-Built Satellite to Orbit Over Asia Pacific Third Four Points by Sheraton Hotel Opens in Malaysia Hong Kong Airport Reports Further Drop in Pax, Cargo and Flights Air Canada Launches Flights Between Vancouver and Auckland, New Zealand Andaz Macau Appoints Chikako Shimizu as GM Cathay Pacific to Take Over Air New Zealand's Auckland-Hong Kong Service Four Seasons Opens Second Luxury Resort in Megeve, France Ireland's Department of Defence Orders Two Airbus C295 Aircraft Best Western Plus Opens in Nairobi, Kenya Qatar Airways Launches Flights to Gaborone, Botswana Korean Air to Revamp SkyPass Frequent Flyer Program Embraer E175-E2 Performs Maiden Flight Charlie Sullivan Joins CWT's Air Distribution Team Marriott Opens Third Sheraton Hotel in Beijing, China Radisson Blu Opens Resort in Cam Ranh, Vietnam Qantas Chooses Airbus A350-1000 for Ultra Long-Haul Flights Executive Appointments at Banyan Tree BA to Launch LHR Flights to Six New European Destinations in 2020 Korean Air to Revamp SkyPass Frequent Flyer Program Embraer E175-E2 Performs Maiden Flight Charlie Sullivan Joins CWT's Air Distribution Team Marriott Opens Third Sheraton Hotel in Beijing, China Radisson Blu Opens Resort in Cam Ranh, Vietnam Qantas Chooses Airbus A350-1000 for Ultra Long-Haul Flights Executive Appointments at Banyan Tree BA to Launch LHR Flights to Six New European Destinations in 2020 How Technology is Shaping Airports of the Future FCM and Flight Centre Achieve NDC Level 4 Certification Dusit Rebrands Luxury Resort in Philippines Emirates Launches Flights to Mexico via Barcelona Air Canada's First Airbus A220-300 Completes Maiden Flight FAA Certifies ExecuJet MRO Malaysia to Work on Dassault Jets AirAsia Launches Snap Air France-KLM Orders 10 A350-900 Aircraft Bundeswehr Takes Delivery of First Airbus H145 SAR Helicopter Drew Crawley to Join American Express Global Business Travel as CCO Cape Town 7s 2019 to Take Place 13-15 December Congo Airways to Replace Dash 8-400s with Embraer E175 Aircraft Ascent Solutions Installs Two E-Gates at NAIA 2 Departures Michel Poussau Appointed GM of Rugby World Cup 2023 Wetherspoon to Invest £200 Million Developing New Pubs and Hotels IATA Asks EU to Support Sustainable Aviation Fuel Transition Boeing Delivers First Modified MV-22 Osprey to United States Marine Corps Marriott Signs Six Hotels in India Accor to Rebrand Hotel in Queensland, Australia MHG Signs Two Hotels in Doha, Qatar Vietjet Launches Flights to New Delhi from Hanoi and Saigon SKY Signs Purchase Agreement for 10 Airbus A321XLRs British Airways Trials 3D Printing SAS' First A350 to Enter Long-Haul Service on 28 January Air Italy and Oman Air Sign Codeshare Agreement ACH and Aston Martin to Unveil 'New Creation' in January Qantas Signs FFP Agreement with Air France - KLM Group Malaysia Airlines Launches Shuttle Fares on Flights Between KL and Singapore Accor to Open 125-Room Mercure Hotel in Canberra in January Openings Push Australia's Hotel Inventory to Over 300,000 Rooms Alban Dutemple Appointed Cluster GM of Two Hotels in Bahrain Air New Zealand Trials Edible Coffee Cups Manchester Airport Unveils Details of £1 Billion Transformation South Africa Beat New Zealand to Win Dubai Sevens Aviation: RPKs Up 3.4% in October 2019 China Airlines to Launch Flights Between Taipei and Cebu, Philippines Marriott Adds North Island Seychelles to Luxury Collection Trenchard Aviation Appoints Neil Watkins as Group DOSM J. 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Tiny, Wealthy Qatar Goes Its Own Way, and Pays for It

By Declan Walsh, NY Times, Jan. 22, 2018

DOHA, Qatar--For the emir of Qatar, there has been little that money can’t buy.

As a teenager he dreamed of becoming the Boris Becker of the Arab world, so his parents flew the German tennis star to Qatar to give their son lessons. A lifelong sports fanatic, he later bought a French soccer team, Paris Saint-Germain, which last summer paid $263 million for a Brazilian striker--the highest transfer fee in the history of the game.

He helped bring the 2022 World Cup to Qatar at an estimated cost of $200 billion, a major coup for a country that had never qualified for the tournament.

Now at age 37, the emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, has run into a problem that money alone cannot solve.

Since June, tiny Qatar has been the target of a punishing air and sea boycott led by its largest neighbors, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Overnight, airplanes and cargo ships bound for Qatar were forced to change course, diplomatic ties were severed and Qatar’s only land border, a 40-mile stretch of desert with Saudi Arabia, slammed shut.

Not even animals were spared. Around 12,000 Qatari camels, peacefully grazing on Saudi land, were expelled, causing a stampede at the border.

Qatar’s foes accuse it of financing terrorism, cozying up to Iran and harboring fugitive dissidents. They detest Al Jazeera, Qatar’s rambunctious and highly influential satellite network. And--although few say it openly--they appear intent on ousting Qatar’s young leader, Tamim, from his throne.

Tamim denies the accusations, and chalks up the animosity to simple jealousy.

“They don’t like our independence,” he said in an interview in New York in September. “They see it as a threat.”

The boycott turned out to be the first strike of a sweeping campaign by the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, that has electrified the Middle East. Obsessed with remaking his hidebound country and curbing the regional ambitions of its nemesis, Iran, the young, hard-charging Saudi has imprisoned hundreds of rivals at a five-star hotel in Riyadh, strong-armed the prime minister of Lebanon in a failed stab at Iran and stepped up his devastating war in Yemen.

The Saudi prince has shaped the Trump administration’s approach to the Middle East and his endeavors could have far-reaching consequences, potentially driving up energy prices, upending Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts and raising the chances of war with Iran.

The Qatar dispute is perhaps the least understood piece of the action, but it has a particularly nasty edge.

In September, at a normally soporific meeting of the Arab League in Cairo, Saudi and Qatari diplomats exchanged barbed epithets like “rabid dog” and heated accusations of treachery and even cruelty to camels. “When I speak, you shut up!” yelled Qatar’s minister of state for foreign affairs, Sultan bin Saad al-Muraikhi.

“No, you are the one who should shut up!” his Saudi counterpart shouted back.

The highly personalized rancor has the unmistakable air of a family feud. Qataris, Saudis and Emiratis stem from the same nomadic tribes, share the same religion and eat the same food. So their dispute has shades of quarreling cousins, albeit ones armed with billions of dollars and American warplanes.

The crisis took an alarming turn last week when the Emirates accused Qatar’s warplanes of harassing two Emirati passenger airliners as they crossed the Gulf. Untrue, said Qatar, which fired back with its own accusation that Emirati warplanes had already breached its airspace twice.

That the other Gulf countries even care about Qatar enough to despise it is a relatively new development.

For much of the 20th century, the country was a barren Persian Gulf backwater where pirates once lurked. Its people were desperately poor, typically diving for pearls in the summer and herding camels in the winter. For decades they lagged far behind their Saudi neighbors, who were in the midst of a heady oil boom. The ruling al-Thani family was riven by vicious internecine squabbles and periodic coups.

Then, in 1971, Qatar struck gas.

The discovery of the world’s largest gas field was initially a source of bitter disappointment. “People hoped for oil,” said Ahmed bin Hamad al-Attiyah, a former energy minister. But by the 1990s, new technology allowed gas to be liquefied and exported in tanker ships.

The emir, Tamim’s father, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, took a huge gamble. Ignoring naysayers, he poured $20 billion into a sprawling liquefaction plant at Ras Laffan, on Qatar’s north coast, with help from the energy giant Exxon Mobil. The company was then headed by Rex W. Tillerson, who is now secretary of state.

The bet paid off spectacularly. Gas boomed, and by 2010 Qatar accounted for 30 percent of the global market.

Since then, Qatar’s citizens, today numbering 300,000, have become very rich, very fast. Their average income of $125,000 is the highest in the world, over twice that of the United States or Saudi Arabia. The state cocoons them with free land, cushy jobs and American universities. Gleaming supercars and limousines cruise along Doha’s palm-lined corniche. Poor Qataris are hard to find.

The metamorphosis was equally dramatic for the Thanis. Once the lords of a desolate peninsula of sand dunes and salt flats, they have become strutting sophisticates on the global stage: style icons who are celebrated in Vanity Fair and Vogue; art titans who splurge hundreds of millions on a Cézanne or a Gauguin; and media moguls who built Al Jazeera, the groundbreaking television network that helped fan the Arab Spring in 2011.

In June, Qatar’s national colors lit up the Empire State Building, in which it owns a stake, a mark of its punchy ambition.

But Qatar’s swagger is deeply contentious among its neighbors. In their reach for global influence, the Thanis have pursued ambidextrous, sometimes contradictory policies--preaching the virtues of peace, education and women’s rights while bankrolling Islamist extremists in Syria and hosting the biggest United States military base in the Middle East.

To Saudi Arabia and the Emirates--and Bahrain and Egypt, who have joined them in the boycott--Qatar is a nation of vexatious meddlers, intoxicated by its own wealth, that needs to be cut down to size.

Three dueling, headstrong royals are at the center of the dispute.

Saudi Arabia’s Prince Mohammed, 32, is leading a campaign to overhaul and energize his stultified society, including with outlandish proposals such as a $500 billion city on the Red Sea run by robots. He has a staunch ally in Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, 56, the hawkish crown prince of the Emirates, who has built a formidable military and shares his Saudi counterpart’s deep hostility toward Iran.

Both princes are arrayed against Tamim, the emir of Qatar. A towering man with a diplomatic mien, Tamim is in many respects a classic Gulf potentate: educated like his father at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in England, he has three wives and 10 children, and lives in several luxurious palaces in Doha, a futuristic city of glass towers and curling highways.

His rise to power in 2013, at the age of 33, offered a stark contrast with the gerontocracy of Saudi Arabia, where rulers clung to their thrones till reaching their deathbeds. And his easy manner belies a stubborn streak that his neighbors see as the mark of a dangerous gadfly.

The baroque feuding among the three leaders--a twisting tale of cyberespionage, propaganda salvos, palace intrigue and high-stakes desert hunts--is worthy of an ancient Gulf power drama. Played by rich men in flowing white robes known as thobes, it has been called the “Game of Thobes.” But it also represents a profound moment of reckoning for the glimmering city-states of the Gulf.

In downtown Doha, behind the imposing palace where the emir holds court twice a week, lies a discreet new museum that tells an ugly story with bracing honesty.

Through a series of polished exhibits, the museum, the Bin Jelmood House, delves into Qatar’s ignominious history of slavery, which was not abolished here until 1952. An evocative video recreates the suffering of the African slaves shipped from Zanzibar to dive for pearls, the mainstay of Qatar’s economy until the mid-20th century. A price list outlines the trade’s heartless calculations: 1,200 rupees, then about $550, for a driver in 1926; 1,500 rupees for a cook in 1909.

The museum, in its willingness to openly address the sins of the past, mirrors the image the Thanis seek to project for their country--open and enlightened, less dour than archconservative Saudi Arabia, more restrained than freewheeling Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.

While Saudi women will finally be allowed to drive in June, Qatari women have been driving for decades. In Qatar, there are cinemas, bars and even female race jockeys. Christians can worship openly. Although Qataris share the puritanical Wahhabi strand of Islam with Saudi Arabia, there are no public beheadings.

Tamim lauds his country’s democratic values. In 50 years, he recently predicted, Al Jazeera will be seen to have “changed the whole idea of free speech in the region.” In many respects, it already has.

But the openness goes only so far.

In 2012, a Qatari poet was sentenced to life in prison for insulting the royal family. (Tamim pardoned him in 2016.) Al Jazeera’s Arabic channel offers blistering coverage of other Arab heads of state but treats Qatar’s royals with kid gloves. Since 2016, the authorities have blocked Doha News, a rare online news outlet that provides critical reporting. In 2005, the government stripped 5,000 tribesmen, accused of disloyalty, of their Qatari nationality.

Although foreign workers make up 90 percent of Qatar’s three million residents, they have paltry rights, and Qatar’s World Cup preparations have been marred by a stream of reports by human rights organizations about abuses of migrant workers. A new law announced in October could significantly improve the situation if it is put in place.

For over a century, Qatar’s rulers were plagued by insecurity, usually at the hands of their own relatives.

Tamim’s grandfather toppled a cousin as emir in 1972, only to be pushed from the throne himself by his son, Hamad, in 1995. The ousted emir, who learned of his fate while on vacation in Switzerland, denounced his son as an “ignorant man” and then retreated into exile.

Once the gas billions flowed, starting in about 2000, family tensions eased, paving the way for an ambitious, reform-minded cast of royals.

Tamim’s mother, Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser Al-Missned, 58, is one of the most famous people in the Arab world, known for her glittering gowns, ageless looks and advocacy of education and social issues. Sheikha Mozah, as she is known, behaves like a Western-style first lady, speaking at United Nations conferences and touring refugee camps in safari wear with a lightly bound scarf over her head.

She carved out her own power base through a multibillion-dollar foundation that created a philharmonic orchestra by recruiting musicians from 30 countries, built an $8 billion research hospital and brought branches of American universities, including Georgetown, Northwestern, Carnegie Mellon and Texas A&M, to Qatar.

Tamim’s younger sister, Mayassa, is Qatar’s culture czarina--an art world behemoth who, at the age of 30, had an estimated annual budget of $1 billion. (The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York typically spends about $30 million on new acquisitions.) In 2008 she cajoled the architect I. M. Pei out of retirement to build the acclaimed Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, and later snapped up major works by Gauguin, Francis Bacon and Damien Hirst. When she bought Cézanne’s “Card Players,” with its un-Islamic scene of drinking and gambling, for an estimated $250 million in 2011, it was the world’s most expensive painting.

In Europe, Qatari royals have a reputation as high rollers with a yen for ostentatious real-estate and aristocratic prestige. After the 2008 financial crash, they bought Greek islands, French castles and so many iconic London properties--including Harrods department store, a share in Heathrow Airport and the Shard, western Europe’s tallest building--that it periodically induces anxious headlines in the British press about Qatar’s owning “more of London than the Queen.”

That much is true, British officials say, but Queen Elizabeth II doesn’t seem to mind: She has repeatedly dined at the $400 million Park Lane mansion of Hamad bin Abdullah al-Thani, a suave, thirtysomething cousin of the emir whose staff members are said to be dressed in the period style of the television series “Downton Abbey.”

In the Middle East, though, Qatar’s rulers have deployed their wealth to assert their independence from their larger neighbors.

For decades, Saudi Arabia, which is 186 times as large, treated Qatar as a virtual vassal state. In the 1940s, Saudi rulers took a slice of Qatar’s modest oil revenues; later they nibbled at Qatar’s territory and dictated its foreign and defense policy.

Tamim’s father, Hamad, accused the Saudis of trying to oust him in a failed coup in 1996--a bitter episode that has framed the decades of simmering rivalry ever since.

Striking out on their own, the Qataris at first played the role of regional peacemaker, turning Doha into a sort of Geneva-on-the-Gulf where protagonists from wars in Sudan, Somalia and Lebanon could hash out their differences in five-star hotels. They embraced America, hosting a vast air base since 2003, the year of the Iraq war, and won popular influence through Al Jazeera, whose provocative style irked just about every Arab government.

The Qataris hosted leaders from the Palestinian militant group Hamas, causing Israeli officials to call Doha a “Club Med for terrorists.”

But it was the Arab Spring in 2011 that truly set Qatar apart. As grass-roots movements rose up against the established order across the Middle East, the Saudis and Emiratis were alarmed by the growing strength of political Islamists, like Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, which they feared could spread chaos in their own countries.

Qatar supported the Islamists.

“We stood by the people,” Tamim told “60 Minutes” in October. “They stood by the regimes. I feel that we stood by the right side.”

The emir could afford to be bold. Qatar had vast wealth, a sprawling American air base just a few miles from his palace and no domestic opposition to speak of.

“There was a feeling they could do anything they wanted, as long as they threw enough money at the problem,” said Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, the author of “Qatar and the Arab Spring.” “Their self-confidence was at a peak.”

But in Riyadh and Abu Dhabi, frustration was brewing.

Fittingly, the alliance between the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, and his Emirati counterpart, Mohammed bin Zayed, was cemented with a falcon hunt, a cherished rite of Gulf royalty that involves elaborate entourages and great expense--a single hunting falcon can cost $250,000.

In February 2016, the two princes traveled to the eastern desert of Saudi Arabia on a hunting safari, followed by summer shooting expeditions in France and Wales, trips that bonded the hyperactive 32-year-old Saudi and the older, like-minded Emirati. As well as a modernizing vision for their countries, they share a penchant for Shakespearean drama.

After Mohammed bin Salman ousted his rival for the throne in June, royal photographers filmed the prince kissing his rival’s hand, then his knee, in a sign of respect. Hours later the man was locked in his palace.

Their military alliance has drawn accusations of overreach. In Yemen, where they lead a devastating yet ineffective air war against the Iran-aligned Houthi faction, their forces face accusations of committing war crimes and stoking famine.

“They are two peas in a pod who see the need for unusual action in unusual times,” said David B. Roberts, a Gulf expert at King’s College London.

They are also united by a desire to put Tamim in his place.

Until recently, the royal rivalry was most evident in their global contest for the most expensive and attention-grabbing ventures. In the Emirates, Dubai has the world’s tallest building, while Qatar has the 2022 World Cup and a number of American universities.

In the art world, a Saudi royal bought Leonardo da Vinci’s “Salvator Mundi” for $450 million in November, eclipsing Qatar’s Cézanne purchase. The da Vinci painting, reported to have been bought for the crown prince, will hang in Abu Dhabi, which recently opened an extension to the Louvre.

They flame each other through their media. Al Jazeera gives free rein to Saudi dissidents, while Sheikha Mozah is the object of lurid, often misogynistic insults in the Saudi, Emirati and Egyptian media, where she is portrayed as a power-hungry manipulator of weak men.

But at its core the rivalry is political. It matters little that Qatar lost its Arab Spring bets: Across the region, Islamist forces bankrolled by Doha are vanquished or in retreat. Still, Qatar’s neighbors view it with near pathological suspicion.

That mistrust burst into the open in 2014 when Saudi Arabia and the Emirates withdrew their ambassadors from Doha, setting off a diplomatic crisis that ended nine months later with a smooth reassurance from Tamim that he would meet their concerns.

Then last year, without warning, those tensions spiked again.

The crisis that set off the Gulf’s biggest confrontation in decades started with a series of random, seemingly unrelated events. And in vintage 2017 fashion, they involved fake news and the new American president, Donald J. Trump.

In March, a sulfurous dispute erupted over the fate of Alaa Alsiddiq, an Emirati dissident who has been living in Doha since 2013. After she published an article on Al Jazeera’s website about women’s rights in the Gulf, the Emiratis, who had canceled her passport, renewed longstanding demands that Tamim send her home.

The emir refused, telling one Western ambassador that he feared she could be tortured or killed. Emirati fury grew.

Even before Mr. Trump landed in Saudi Arabia in May, on the first foreign trip of his presidency, he appeared to be firmly in the Saudi camp. For months, the Saudi and Emirati leadership had cultivated a close relationship with Jared Kushner, the president’s adviser and son-in-law.

Mr. Kushner, a foreign policy neophyte, absorbed the princes’ views on the region, including their hostility to Qatar, a senior State Department official said, describing the relationships as very close.

In Riyadh, Mr. Trump signaled his burgeoning relationship by posing alongside 81-year-old King Salman with their hands on a glowing orb--an image that was meant to project solidarity but which gave them the appearance of movie villains and inspired a rash of internet memes.

Mr. Trump also met with Tamim, and the Qatari leader thought it went well. But two days later, back in Doha, the emir was shaken from his sleep with disturbing news: Someone had hacked the state-run Qatar News Agency and posted on its website a report of the emir calling Iran a “superpower,” lauding Hamas and speculating that Mr. Trump might not last long in power.

The report was pure fiction, but Qatar’s neighbors pounced on it as the real thing. Within minutes, pundits at Emirati and Saudi television stations were expounding on the perfidy of Qatar and issuing heated denunciations. Tamim frantically called his ministers and had the article taken down.

Thinking the problem solved, he settled in to watch a big National Basketball Association game, the Golden State Warriors and the San Antonio Spurs. In fact, his troubles had just started.

Over the following weeks, Emirati and Saudi news outlets accelerated their attacks on Qatar, accusing it of threatening Gulf stability. Several conservative think tanks in Washington joined the chorus. Then on June 5, without warning, the four-country boycott crashed onto Qatar.

Mr. Trump was eager to take credit.

“During my recent trip to the Middle East I stated that there can no longer be funding of Radical Ideology,” he wrote in a tweet the next day. “Leaders pointed to Qatar--look!”

American intelligence officials determined that the planting of the fake news story had been orchestrated by the Emirates, which had been quietly pushing for a boycott of Qatar since 2016, a United States official told The New York Times.

“The smoking gun leads to Abu Dhabi,” the seat of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed, he said, citing briefings from intelligence officials. “There is no ambiguity.” Moreover, the official said, the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, had prior knowledge of the ruse and had signaled his approval.

Yousef al-Otaiba, the Emirates’ ambassador to Washington, said his country “categorically denied” any involvement in the hack. The Saudi government did not respond to a request for comment.

One afternoon last August, I drove to Aqua Park, a water park in the desert 20 minutes outside Doha, to see how Qatar was surviving the boycott. Inside the park, where midday temperatures reached 120 degrees, men and women wearing swimsuits mingled freely, although bikinis were discouraged. Screaming children barreled down the Boomerango, the park’s largest ride. American warplanes rumbled overhead, bound for battle zones in Iraq and Syria.

Aqua Park is a few hundred yards from Al Udeid, the American air base whose runway lights glitter in the distance. The base, with 10,000 American service personnel, has been Qatar’s strategic jewel for over a decade, one major reason it could defy its neighbors. Now the Emirates was pressuring the United States to close it.

The park is a typical Qatari business in that no Qataris work there: The park’s manager, Mohammed Firdous Raj, is Malaysian, the lifeguards are Kenyan and other employees are Lebanese and Egyptian. Before the boycott, one quarter of its business came from Saudi tourists, who made the 25-minute drive from the border. But now the desert highway was half-empty, as were many hotels in Doha.

“We’d like them to come back,” Mr. Raj said of the Saudis. But the park’s owner, a former Qatari government minister, had allowed him to discount ticket prices, so business was about the same. “It’s a pity about the Saudis,” he said with a shrug. “Either way, we will manage.”

The boycott has inflicted some pain on Qatar. With its only land border closed, its ships blocked from passing through Emirati ports and its planes restricted from flying over neighboring airspace, import costs have soared. The stock exchange lost one-fifth of its value last year. Foreign workers, unable to party in Dubai on weekends, grumble about the claustrophobia of buttoned-up Doha. And the travel bans have torn apart families, whose relatives have straddled borders for centuries.

But for the most part, daily life in Doha is largely unchanged. Pricey wine flows in five-star hotels, work continues on a new metro system, and a striking National Museum, shaped as a series of giant intersecting discs, is set to become the city’s latest architectural marvel.

On weekends, young Qatari men go “dune bashing”--riding tricked-out four-wheel drive vehicles at high speed along mountainous dunes, sometimes flipping over. Qatar’s central bank says it has a $340 billion war chest to help weather the crisis.

And the boycott has backfired in some respects. The trade restrictions have forced Qatar into deeper economic ties with Iran, while Tamim has become the object of a fervent personality cult. The emir’s image adorns billboards draped off skyscrapers, and he is lionized in saccharine songs hailing his steely leadership. “He’s the embodiment of the philosopher king,” said Dana al-Fardan, one such balladeer.

His ministers, making a virtue of necessity, are developing new trade and transportation links. To make up for lost Saudi milk, they created a new dairy industry from scratch in the desert.

A strident nationalism has displaced the old talk of “brotherly” ties between the countries. Qatari pilgrims claimed they had been prevented from traveling to Mecca in Saudi Arabia, and showing sympathy for Qatar has become a criminal offense in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the Emirates.

Any hopes that the Trump administration could end the crisis were scuppered by its chaotic policy. Mediation efforts by Mr. Tillerson, who had decades of experience in Qatar as an energy executive, were repeatedly undercut by Mr. Trump, who at a Washington fund-raiser mocked the way that Qatar is pronounced.

Although Mr. Trump has since stopped his attacks on Qatar, presenting himself as a mediator, some senior advisers continue the fight. Breitbart News Network, which until recently was run by Mr. Trump’s onetime ideological firebomber Stephen K. Bannon, has published dozens of articles attacking Qatar as a rogue ally.

Is Qatar soft on terrorism? Some of the charges are red herrings, American officials say. Tamim cut funding to most extremist militias in Syria and Islamist groups in Libya in 2015, at the urging of the Obama administration. His cordial ties with Iran are a matter of necessity because the two countries share the giant gas field that is the source of Qatar’s wealth.

Where Qatar does have a case to answer, officials say, is in its treatment of Qatari citizens accused of financing terrorist groups like Al Qaeda. Trials of accused financiers, when they take place, occur in secret, making it hard to know what punishment, if any, is imposed.

Abd al-Rahman al-Nuaymi, a former university professor and financier who has been designated a terrorist by the United Nations and the United States, was tried secretly in 2015 and acquitted. He now lives openly in Doha, albeit with restrictions on his banking and ability to travel, said a former United States treasury official who was briefed on the case. A senior Qatari official said that prosecutors were preparing to try him again.

But similar charges can be laid at the feet of Qatar’s foes. The Saudis have long been accused of exporting radical Islam across the world through hard-line madrassas. Iran’s biggest trading partner in the region is not Qatar but Dubai. Human rights abuses and press freedom restrictions are far harsher in the Emirates.

For Qatar’s supporters, the hypocrisy reveals what they say is the boycott’s true goal: to cut down or take out Qatar’s youthful emir, the royal who refuses to go along to get along.

For Tamim, the ultimate aim of his neighbors is to oust him from power. In the interview with The Times, he cited as precedent the 1996 Saudi-sponsored coup attempt against his father. “This was always the warning at the back of our heads,” he said.

His fears may be justified. In the early days of the boycott, two American officials said, Saudi and Emirati leaders mulled possible military action against Qatar. The precise details were unclear, but the talk was deemed serious enough for Mr. Tillerson to personally warn the Saudi and Emirati leaders against precipitous action. Mr. Trump later repeated that advice in a call to Saudi leaders.

Yousef al-Otaiba, the Emirati ambassador to Washington, denied in an interview that there was ever a military plan. “We never contemplated it,” he said.

But even the suggestion of military action highlighted how the old rules have been shattered in the Gulf. The six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council, the regional body that is supposed to resolve such disputes, has been invisible during the crisis. Instead the Saudis have promoted a string of exiled Qatari businessmen as potential political rivals to Tamim.

The Qataris appear to have returned fire on the hacking front. For months American news media outlets have received stolen emails intended to embarrass Mr. Otaiba, the Emirati ambassador. The emails appear to come from Russia, but Saudi media reports say Qatar was behind them.

Qatar denied any involvement in the hacking. “Qatar, as a matter of policy and principle, does not engage in cyber crimes or traffic in ‘fake news,’” the government said in a statement to The Times on Sunday.

Nothing suggests that the dispute will be resolved anytime soon. Although the Saudis and Emiratis may have overestimated the boycott’s ability to pressure Qatar, they may feel they have little to lose by continuing it.

“I think they are content to bleed Qatar,” said Mr. Roberts, the analyst. “There’s an indignant anger at what they see as a rich, cocooned, perfidious little state that is finally feeling the consequences of its actions.”

But as the dispute moved to the skies last week, with accusations of Qatari warplanes buzzing Emirati commercial jets, it highlighted how easily the crisis could escalate.

Both sides are bolstering their militaries. Since June, Tamim has ordered 36 F-15 warplanes from the United States, 24 Typhoon jets from Britain and 24 Rafale fighter jets from France--a sevenfold increase for an air force that currently has just 12 aircraft.

In December, his foes announced a new Saudi-Emirati military and economic alliance that further sidelines the Gulf Cooperation Council, which includes Qatar.

Days later, Tamim hosted a lavish banquet for President Emmanuel Macron of France at Idam, a French restaurant on the top floor of the Museum of Islamic Art that offers a shimmering panorama over the Doha skyline.

Over a sumptuous meal prepared by the celebrity chef Alain Ducasse, the two leaders toasted the deals they had signed that morning. The emir had ordered another 12 French fighter jets.

In a few decades, Qatar has been transformed from a pirate-infested backwater to the world’s wealthiest nation.

#Qatar #emir of Qatar #Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani

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rollinbrigittenv8 · 7 years

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Qatar Under Blockade Is a Mix of Time-Sucking Layovers and a Fascinating Crossroads

Qataris wave the national flag celebrating the country's selection as the host of the 2022 FIFA World Cup. Associated Press

Skift Take: While much of the news media focuses on bigger-picture geopolitical issues emanating from the Saudi-led blockade, it is actually the small constrictions that can be the most painful in Qatar. But, despite increased travel friction, Doha remains one of the most intriguing places in the world at the moment.

— Colin Nagy

We touched down for a brief visit in Doha recently. And although the blockade doesn’t appear to be having huge impact on day to day life in the country thanks to trade with Turkey and Iran, one thing is clear: It has made inter-Gulf-country travel an absolute nightmare for those who have to do it on a regular basis.

The diplomatic and travel cold shoulder, which began in June, saw Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates sever ties wth Qatar.

In the past, there used to be a convenient 45-minute flight from Doha to Abu Dhabi, replete with multi-course meal service on Qatar Airways. Now, travelers wanting to get to Doha from the Emirates have to fly via Kuwait City, with a particularly time-sucking layover, or via Oman, a scruffy airport that leaves much to be desired.

A trip that was a frequent, easy commuter flight has turned into something that bleeds a day out of consultants, business people, and those just looking to simply move around the region. A quick chat with resident road warriors conveyed the fact that this has become a major headache.

While much of the news media focuses on bigger-picture geopolitical issues, it is actually the small constrictions that can be the most painful.

But, despite increased travel friction, Doha remains one of the most intriguing places in the world at the moment.

Like Vienna During the Cold War?

In the words of Declan Walsh, a New York Times reporter, “against a backdrop of purring limousines and dhows moored in the bay, Doha has become home to an exotic array of fighters, financiers and ideologues, a neutral city with echoes of Vienna in the Cold War, or a Persian Gulf version of the fictional pirate bar in the Star Wars movies.

And if the so-called Mos Eisley Cantina has a physical place in the country, it might be in the beautifully appointed bar at the Four Seasons Doha, where an air of intrigue permeates the room, and where American business people, Qataris, and wide ranges of nationalities discuss business, politics and other things. To be a fly on the wall, nursing a martini is immensely interesting.

Elsewhere in Doha, one could be forgiven for not seeing signs of a slowdown. The city has embarked on one of the largest public transportation projects in history, with 31 stations under construction and an estimated 41,000 workers on the project. The first phase of the Doha Metro is slated to be complete in 2020, when the project’s first 37 of an estimated 100 metro stations are expected to be live.

The emphasis on public transportation is laudable, and certainly necessary for the impending World Cup in 2022, but one questions how it will fare in a world that is currently car centric; after all Qataris seem to love white Land Cruisers. When these stations will be completed, we will beginning to see the first phases of autonomous vehicles or even other future-facing forms of transportation like the Hyperloop.

Hamad Airport: Premier Hub With a Quirky Rhythm

In terms of air travel, Hamad International Airport stands as one of the world’s finest hubs, though by a quirk of its design, one can’t really tell if it is day or night outside, and it seems to run on its own, liquid-internal rhythm not unlike a casino. It is set to be expanded to an estimated 65 million passengers with the new addition of an F concourse, according to Arabian Business magazine. With the delay of Abu Dhabi’s airport, this allows for a favorable strategic position in the region, which is important to national carrier Qatar Airways.

In terms of hospitality, capacity is coming online at a steady clip. A second Four Seasons is being built; a new Mondrian just opened; a JW Marriott is on the way, along with a Le Meridien, and a Langham Place is among many other brands vying for tourism dollars as the economy braces for the World Cup.

Marveling and Wincing During Doha Jaunt

Elsewhere, cultural centers and significant building projects continue. A day spent touring around town left me equally marveling at the ambition and effort, and also wincing at the overly “global village” architecture and designs at the Pearl development. It’s as if the country is awkwardly pillaging a buffet of different styles and cultures, and placing them on a man-made archipelago (Spanish village, anyone?).

Esteemed urban studies writer Jane Jacobs wouldn’t exactly be smiling at some of the city planning. There’s a huge opportunity for more thoughtful, tasteful global brands, restaurants and chains to come to Doha rather than the predictable global chain fare. This nuance and taste would change the dynamic of the city immensely, and make it feel less like an overblown mall and more of a global, cosmopolitan hub.

The pace of construction has come with significant human rights concerns raised by groups like Human Rights Watch. Qatar has responded by introducing a minimum wage for migrant workers, announced last week, and has also brought other reforms such as stopping employers from preventing workers to leave freely.

The state had previously operated under a “kafala” system, where employers have had a tremendous amount of power over how their employees live and move.

All in all, Qatar is a fascinating lens to look at the world. A million factors are colliding at once, and the tectonic plates are rubbing together in a very interesting way.

The state is both full of the future — positive and dystopian — tinged with a Bedouin past that still imbues parts of its thinking,

Qatar serves as an interesting crossroads where global capitalism brushes shoulders with expat Egyptian clerics, Syrian exiles, Libyan islamists and countless other nationalities traveling from impoverished hometowns to make some sort of dream come true.

There’s good and bad, there’s progress and pain, but it is undoubtedly interesting to closely observe under a scorching Gulf sun.

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