Etihad Airways Chief Executive Officer James Hogan said at a Washington aviation summit on Tuesday that the company is government-owned and has received equity investment and loans from its shareholder.
The remarks come as U.S. airlines allege that Etihad and peer airlines from the Gulf have received unfair state subsidies. Hogan said few young companies have operated as transparently as Etihad, which is little more than a decade old.
“We shouldn’t attack what we don’t understand,” he said.