Sat, Feb 27, 2010
Anti-Trust Immunity Will Increase Competition, Coalition
Says
The Business Travel Coalition
(BTC) Wednesday praised the Obama Administration for its decision,
announced Saturday by the U.S. DOT, to propose a grant of antitrust
immunity to American Airlines, British Airways, Royal Jordanian
Airlines, Finnair and Iberia Airlines to form a global
alliance.
BRC says that, upon final approval, consumers and corporate
travel departments will have three fully competitive alliance
networks battling it out for their business. With the Star and
SkyTeam alliances having been operating with antitrust immunity for
their ventures for some time, business travelers no doubt have been
paying higher fares than necessary with oneworld's inability to
provide effective competitive discipline to the other two immunized
alliances.
"While we are still reviewing the details, we are pleased DOT's
expert analysis was consistent with much of BTC's formal comments
in the proceeding. Corporate travel departments in the U.S. and
Europe will now be able to aggressively leverage professional
procurement processes to their benefit. An immunized American
Airlines / British Airways will strengthen the competitiveness of
London Heathrow vis-à-vis, Paris Charles De Gaulle,
Germany's Frankfurt and Amsterdam's Schiphol airports resulting in
greater opportunities to play one alliance off against the others
as these competitors seek to attract business travelers to transit
their respective European gateway airports," stated BTC Chairman
Kevin Mitchell.
BTC says inter-alliance competition worldwide will be
strengthened for the benefit of corporate travel departments
everywhere. "On top of Japan Airlines' decision this week to remain
with oneworld, which guarantees three-way alliance competition in
the U.S. to Japan and Northern Asia markets as well in the intra
Asia markets, the decision announced by DOT once again herald's the
dawn of an invigorated consumer voice at DOT," the organization
said in a statement. "BTC encourages the DOT and European
Commission, which is also reviewing the airlines' proposal, to
proceed without delay in bringing these benefits to the airline
customer."
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