Dubai airline Emirates rejects Delta apology over 9/11 comments
An increasingly bitter trade row between US and Gulf airlines deepened on Thursday when Dubai's Emirates rejected a Delta Air Lines apology for remarks perceived as linking Gulf carriers with the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States in 2001.
Relations have deteriorated since a group of US airlines compiled a dossier claiming that major Gulf carriers had received $40 billion in subsidies and urged the US government to renegotiate or scrap an Open Skies trade pact. Gulf carriers denied that they received subsidies and said that United States-based airlines themselves benefited from $5 billion in government help in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.
Asked about those counter-claims on CNN this week, Delta CEO Richard Anderson said: "It's a great irony to have the United Arab Emirates from the Arabian Peninsula talk about that, given the fact that our industry was really shocked by the terrorism of 9/11, which came from terrorists from the Arabian Peninsula."
