United Airlines has announced it will suspend service to Kuwait City and Bahrain on January 13, 2016.
I’ve flown the route twice and the plane was half full both times (and with only about 50 passengers the one time I continued on to Bahrain). The U.S. continues to scale down its presence in the Middle East and while U.S. service personnel will remain stationed in Bahrain, depressed needs for passenger service and cargo sound like a logical reason for the route cancellation. But the real reason may be much more political.
United released the following statement confirming its suspension of the KWI/BAH service:
I thought the wording “we will continue to maintain an open dialogue with both governments” was suspicious and reached out to a contact who would be at the forefront of this news. It seems the real reason for United’s conclusion of service to Kuwait is not that it was losing a lot of money, but that the Kuwaiti government felt the need to retaliate for the recent controversy over Kuwait Airways denying an Israel citizen transport on a flight departing from New York City.
If you recall, Kuwait Airways operates a Fifth Freedom route between New York and London which offers very reasonable fares. A man traveling on an Israeli passport was denied boarding because Kuwait does not recognize an Israeli passport as a valid travel document and the man filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Transportation.
DOT ruled in his favor, claiming Kuwait Airways engaged in unlawful discrimination. The Kuwaiti flag carrier has not really publicly responded, other than to express its dismay and disagreement over the ruling via its American legal team.
What my contact tells me is that United was just notified a few days before the word went public and given the January deadline with no chance for appeal. Take this info for what is it worth, I will not name my source, but I do not have reason to doubt it. Oddly, the Kuwait Times (the first English newspaper in the Gulf and not a state-owned publication) saw fit to publish a story on United CEO Oscar Munoz’s health, but has not mentioned United’s departure from Kuwait City yet.
United will maintain service to Dubai and will take steps in the coming weeks to re-accommodate passengers already booked beyond January on the Kuwait flight. For those actually needing to travel from the States to Kuwait or Bahrain, flying via Germany will now be necessary to stick with Star Alliance, a much less convenient schedule.
I would suspect both United and the Kuwait government to deny geopolitics had anything to do this decision, but statecraft in which two airlines become unwilling pawns is nothing new.
I’m sorry, but what is the basis for your assertion? Do you have any link, anywhere to anything anybody might have said that this is the case? Of course not. You are linking two disparate events, and then writing a whole blog entry on the assumption that your speculation is true. I realise this is a blog, but come on, have at least some journalistic integrity.
Your article’s TL;DR; because aliens
You’re free to draw your own conclusions, but I trust my source and this did not come from me.
Didn’t the US liberate Kuwait from Iraq invasion? How quickly they forget.
Still no post about United at JFK???? It’s the final weekend.
Not only the US but many countries contributed to liberating Kuwait after the country’s elite hired a Washington lobbying company to fabricate stories about things that never happened, to inflame the American public and convince the government to intervene. Saddam was playing Sunni politics and was pressing a long claim to the territory now known as Kuwai. Suffice to also note that Saudi Arabia didn’t want Saddam on its borders, but of course wasn’t prepared at the time to go to war against him, instead relying on its long time proxy agent, the USA. After the UAE kicked out Canada’s military from its supply base in that country during the Afghan war because we’d not give Emirates more flights into the country, one can see how these governments play when they don’t get their way!
@Kevin — a trifecta of posts coming on United/PS/JFK
Hahahahahahahahahahaha
Gotta love conspiracy theorist.
Let me point out that the Kuwaiti govt does not offer protectionism to its airline. Study the local aviation scene and Kuwait’s adoption of open skies policy and you will see how Kuwait Airways is being punched by Emirates Qatar and Etihad.
The case here may be just simple: United isn’t doing that well. If indeed the Kuwaiti govt is vanishing United, why would United stop flights to Bahrain? Why not keep Bahrain and just choose another city to link with Bahrain in lieu of Kuwait? Doha maybe? Abu Dhabi? Jeddah? Cairo? The list of cities are endless.
Your “source” seems to enjoy Hollywood blockbusters just too much and you seem to enjoy watching movies just as much to report this as a matter of fact. Hahahaha a funny blog indeed that does nothing but show how easy the Internet made people think they can write.
This political fact has been numerous times corroborated by many Kuwaiti government reps. It is a valud reason as why US was forced to leave Kuwait