Air France-KLM and Lufthansa CEOs Unite to Push Back Against Gulf Rivals

It’s not often that leaders of Europe’s fiercest airline rivals talk in tandem. But that’s what happened when Air France-KLM’s Ben Smith and Lufthansa Group’s Carsten Spohr sat down for the first time to give a joint interview.

The unlikely duo’s collective message published in Les Echos and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung was clear: Europe’s biggest airlines are tired of playing by rules they say tilt in favor of non-European carriers.

Both argued that Europe’s aviation industry – and the 12 million jobs tied to it – is under threat from state-backed competitors in the Gulf and Turkey. They claim the airlines enjoy advantages that European carriers can only dream of.

credit: air france-klm

“The lack of a level playing field in European aviation” was Ben Smith’s opening line. He warned that non-European airlines now control more than half of all traffic to and from the continent. “Some aren’t subject to the same governm