Be again again. And thirdly, im going to also support my Agriculture Community because i like to eat. I want to make sure myo re farmers are taken care of. I appreciate you all being here. And closing up i ask unanimous consent that members have five days to extendo or remarks and include material. Without objection, so ordered. With that, this hearing is adjourned. Were going live now to capitol hill where vice admiral peter is testifying this morning at a science and Transportation Committee confirmation hearing on his nomination to be Homeland Security assistant secretary and the Transportation Security Administration administrator. The hearing is scheduled to start at 10 15, being delayed due to votes in the senate. Well join the hearing as soon as it gets underway. Until then, an event with the ceo of United Airlines who joined forces to speak out against government owned airline in qatar. They alleged that the Airline Carriers are receiving unfair subsidies from their respective governments and have asked them to freeze rights to the United States. This event held at the National Press club in washington, d. C. As part of its luncheon series. I want to welcome our cspan audiences. You can follow this event on twitter. Use npclunch. And remember, the public attends our lunches, applause is not evidence of a lack of journalistic objectivity. U. S. Airlines relative to the previous decade at least, are doing well. They have been posted profits on low lower jet fuel prices and awarding investors. Yet these three ceos look overseas and they worry. They say three carriers are undermining fair competition and threatening american jobs. They want the Obama Administration to look at open skies. They want the administration to seek a freeze on new Passenger Service by the three gulf carriers during these discussions. Several labor unions are aligned with this effort by the u. S. Carriers and of course, theres a strong point of view on the opposite side. The gulf carriers say the effort by these ceos is misguide edd. Elm rats president tim clark earlier this year called the airline claims, quote bluster and flim flan. Qatars ceo said there are no grounds for denying Gulf Airlines access to u. S. Markets. He said the u. S. Airlines were using, quote bullying tactics. So you lost the coin toss and get the first question. You have been ceo of United Airlines since 2010 and you led continental before the merger with united and you were going all the way back to 1995. You now lead the second Biggest Airline in the world. Why are you so worried about three smaller competitors in the middle east . First, thank you for inviting the three of us today to talk about this important issue. This is a significant issue. Its a significant threat to the u. S. Airline industry. Its a significant threat to our employees employees. Its a significant threat to their jobs. It is a significant issue in u. S. Trade policy. U. S. Trade policy has a long history of enforcing rights under trade agreements. Predicated on a fair and level competitive Playing Field free of distortion such as government subsidies. The three carriers that were talking about are not just airlines. They are arms of the state. They are part of state policy to drive tourism and trade through the middle east and these three carriers are not stimulating demand. In fact, today we released an analysis showing that these carriers are not actually adding travel, they are actually just siphoning travel away from their foreign partner thats detrimental to u. S. Jobs. Were asking to invoke the provisions of open skies agreements with these two nations. Were Firm Believers in open skies. Open skies has been a boon to consumers, to our employees and u. S. Airlines. But in this case out of 114 open skies treaties, two are being heavily abused. We have spent a considerable amount of time and money initially led by Delta Airlines to uncover the degree of proof of massive government subsidies. It is the trade policy of the United States, just as it would be if someone were dumping steel or dumping soy beans or cotton, here its subsidized by foreign governments as part of the foreign governments policy to grow traffic to and through the middle east. This is an important issue. Its an important issue thats the harm is accelerating. How this movie ends, it does not end well. We have seen what the gulf carriers have done to the carriers in europe. We have seen what they are doing to singapore. We know how this movie ends. It does not end well for american consumers. It does not end well for the men and women of our airlines and for the american economy. Doug parker a little bit about you. You became ceo of American Airlines in 2013 and that followed the merger with u. S. Airways and you had been ceo at u. S. Airways. Before that ceo of america west. You are seeing these gulf carriers adding new routes and now you want the u. S. Government to take really an unusual step of freezing new routes, doesnt sound like what a competitor would do. Why are you taking this strange step . We dont think its strange at all. We think its exactly what the Bilateral Agreement calls for. The request is simply to have consultations, to have talks. We have added to that request that until we can get through those talks that wed like to see a freeze in the flying. That by the way, hasnt happened. We should note that these simply since we have announced or laid out our case in january, those three carriers have increased their capacity by 25 . So they are clearly doing everything they can to win the race against the clock because the reality is we have put forward an extremely compelling case. Our government cant ignore it, they wont ignore it and they will have consultations and well have action. And those carriers know that. And thats why they are adding so much capacity. Thats why they are making comments such as it took us two years to find the information so they should have two years to respond. Those are simply attempts to get in as much flying because they are well aware of the fact they are violating the trade agreement and that indeed theres going to be some action taken. So i dont think while its nothing that we have done before it doesnt mean its strange. We have never seen anything like this. Who would contemplate to countries putting 40 billion in subsidies into. Three airlines. Behavior like that results in things that you dont see very often. Thats whats happening here. We have uncovered the facts, were responding accordingly and simply asking for consultation to take place and once they do were certain that well get to a place that works for everyone. Richard anderson you became ceo of delta in 2007 and you previously ran Northwest Airlines and you go all the way back to 1987 in the industry when you began with continental. You have cited a figure of 42 billion in subsidies that go to gulf carriers. How do you back up the figure when there arent public documents that anybody can see that will show that figure . And then assuming that these subsidies are happening down the road, youll have to show that they are actually harming you and the industry. Are you going to be able to show harm . First on the evidence, we started a process at delta a couple years ago because just by definition, an a380 from milan to jfq, if you have been in the industry intuition tells you dont need to see a report to tell you that that cant work. We kept reading that carriers were saying actually in filed statements at dot that there were no subsidies to any of these three carriers but over the time frame of these bilateral relationships, they have added they have 24 nonstops, 24 daily nonstops. It was just counterintuitive because those countries have populations the size of north dakota. So normally to have that kind of traffic between two points it just wouldnt support, so we began a process to try to figure out whats going on and we found their Financial Statements. We found them in places like singapore, but we spread out around the world and actually its sort of interest inging. Those countries all required these airlines to file their Financial Statements. Odd ly oddly enough in the u. S. We dont require that. But other countries do. These are certified Financial Statements that showed the subsidies. They are fully disclosed. So the work we did was not only that but we also did Research Across all the financial documents we could find around the world. Airport financings, financings by the government, and we were able to build a really strong case to put it in a Legal Framework framework, we proved subsidy beyond a reasonable doubt. You cant refute the evidence. The evidence is overwhelming. The harm is the media. The best way to describe the harm is the u. S. Carriers essentially, except for two flights a day from united american and delta have exited the india market. And thats really pretty stark when you think about it. India is a very big country. It has a huge trade relationship with the u. S. Particularly for i. T. It has huge agricultural trade between the two countries, but in essence, we dont have any u aviation trade. We have exited the market completely because essentially what these carriers have done is with subsidized Government Strategies come into the marketplace to basically shift the traffic off of us and take us out of the indian market. You think about it u. S. Flag carriers ought to be in the indian market. But its not sustainable when you have 41 billion worth of subsidy, its very difficult, if not impossible, for us to be able to compete. And that harm is the median. We have a good analysis thats part of our white paper. A long haul wide body 777 when we count the professional pilots and professional flight attendants and dispatchers and technicians and ground operations personnel drives about a thousand jobs per flight. So when we put a 777 or 74 or a350 on a daily nonstop across the ocean, it drives almost a thousand jobs for each one of these carriers. And those jobs arent here. The three airlines that you see here today collectively employ 300,000 people. Our collective cap budgets are well over 12 billion a year of investment into airplanes and the infrastructure. And we create Huge Positive trade surpluses for our country. And our aviation policy is being violated. The state the aviation policy of this country is we will act vigorously through all our appropriate means to defend our rights and protect our airlines to ensure that competition is fair and the Playing Field is level by eliminating marketplace distortions such as government. Subsidies. End of case. Its time to get on with understanding what the appropriate remedies are to create a level Playing Field. I have a lot of questions so im going to combine some along themes where i can. So what reaction have you had from the Obama Administration to your complaints . Why would they want to poke their finger in the eyes of key allies at a time like this . And then the other one is it did this issue come up with the camp dade meeting with leaders of gulf states . If not, how do you feel about it being left off the agenda . Let me answer at least one of those questions. It is the long standing practice of the United States government with respect to trade disputes to buy fer indicate from matters of National Security or defense. Let me use the boeing and airbus dispute. By the way, the amount of subsidies here dwarf the size of the boeing airbus dispute. That was a dispute with clear allies in the european union. They are members of nato and yet our government sit down and can understand there are different swim lanes for a trade dispute and matters of National Security or defense. We would expect nothing different from our own government in connection with with discussions. In terms of the reaction of the administration we have visited with the department of commerce, the department of transportation we visited with the white house, we visited with ustr we visited with department of state and we have gotten serious interest from serious people about a serious issue. There clearly are a lot of issues involved and this is complex. Our government has asked us in addition to the white paper and the considerable documentation we have provided initially back in january, they ask us additional questions, which we responded to and filed with them a stack of paper when printed o out is about that high in response to their questions. They have very good information. We expect them to act on it. The concern that we have is that we need them to act on it with urgency because as doug mentioned, the gulf carriers are taking advantage of this time period to add 25 more flights than they have as of january 28th. And thats a serious issue a because the harm is current, its present, its happening and now its accelerating. We also know this harm accelerates to the point it can threaten the existence of carriers as it has in europe. This is a serious issue. Our government is taking it very seriously. Should this have been on the agenda yesterday in president obamas meeting with the gulf state leaders . I dont know the content of those discussions. I would have no way of knowing that. My understanding from the press is those are matters relating to defense. And as such, i would not expect these to be discussed because this is not a defense issue. Very practically, these are the sorts of issues that should be handled in the normal course separate and apart from those kinds of defense meetings because in a mature trade relationship, just like we have with europe and the example that jeff gave with boeing airbus theres regular give and take in the state department. We have 114 open skies agreements around the world that are administered all the time, all of which we support. By the way, we also support open skies in the instance of these three carriers. We just have to have actions taken to level the Playing Field. And in the normal course and scope, we interact with governments around the world to work through these issues and with state department to work through these issues and would expect through those normal channels this would be something that would be managed consistent with the open skies policy and the signed trade agreements with these two countries. I mentioned in the introduction the three of you are together on this and labor unions are supporting you but there are some who are not with you. So the travel industry association, which includes lowes, expedia has an opposition. The Cargo Airline association was out this week, including fedex and ups not with you. Jetblue is a cochair partner of elm rats, not part of this. Does the fact that its not a broader Coalition Give some indication that this is an issue that if it hurts parts of the industry and those parts of the industry are not happy, but theres other parts of the industry in u. S. That is perfectly happy with the status quo, is it an issue of where you sit is where you stand on this one . Let me try that one. The issue is we care the most because it effects us the most. Our employees are here because they understand the effect its going to have on them. The short answer to that is the other organizations you described either dont understand the situation or have a view u that it doesnt concern them. It certainly isnt better for them. Heres the reality. Today, as richard described, were already experiencing some damage. The india example. Thats real damage but as jeff described what we have seen in europe and what will happen here if our government allows these flights to continue into our country, well see more of the jfk type service into the United States. From points not into the gulf. That has a material potential impact on this industry. Thats why our employees are so concerned. Because once that happens, the three of us, the reason were so concerned is while this sometimes is inside baseball to people, everyone pretty much understands if youre flying International Flights from philadelphia to europe those flights arent full of people flying nonstop from philadelphia to europe. There are people flying from all over the United States on to europe. If we cant fly philadelphia to that flight anymore, were not going to have as many flights to the United States. It starts to unwind. Once those hubs start to unwind, the entire Aviation Business is materially different. We need many less employees and its not right. Thats whats going to happen if this goes unchecked. Thats why the three of us are so concerned. Those other organizations you mentioned either dont understand that or dont care about u. S. Commercial aviation. And none of what were saying is meant to harm the cargo business, for example, and wouldnt. This is simply about commercial aviation and passenger carriers. So look, we may have some more education to do with them. They clearly dont understand the impacts to the United States or they wouldnt have those views. What i was going to say i didnt mean to interrupt you, with respect to car ego carriers. They do understand our issues. They, however, have a set of traffic rights they rely on through the middle east which are different than our sets of traffic rights. This is an issue for passenger carriers. Its not an issue for Cargo Carriers carriers. They are concerned that our issue could bleed over through