Qatar Airways is willing to “open” its financial books for scrutiny, according to CEO Akbar Al Baker, who said President Donald Trump could set up a special committee to examine them.
“We are publishing our accounts and we are not running our airlines that we are perceived to run as,” airline CEO Akbar Al Baker told CNNMoney.
“We have open book and President Trump is most welcome to appoint a special council to look at this,” he said.
Al Baker said Trump, who had an audience with American aviation CEOs last week, should also listen to Gulf carriers and not just the Big 3 US airline – Delta, United and American.
He also highlighted the fact that Gulf airlines have followed Trump’s “America First” policy for a very long time.
“Whilst they [American airlines] are creating bumper profits – the highest profits of any airline has ever made – they are buying aeroplanes from manufacturers outside the US, but we keep on buying massive number of aeroplanes from the American manufacturer,” he said.
Al Baker said the three Gulf carriers have been bringing a large number of people into the US and have created jobs in the US.
Emirates chairman Sheikh Ahmed said earlier that the airline has invested $140 billion [AED514bn] in the US, supporting millions of jobs.
