Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Jul. 24, 2007 (McClatchy-Tribune Regional News delivered by Newstex) --
American Airlines Inc. said Tuesday that it has asked the U.S. Department of Transportation to grant antitrust immunity to its alliance with four international carriers.
However, the list did not include British Airways PLC (OOTC:BAIRY) , its most important partner in the Oneworld alliance.
American wants to be able to coordinate fare-setting, scheduling, frequent-flier programs, marketing, code-sharing and other activities with Iberia, Finnair, Malev Hungarian Airlines and Royal Jordanian Airlines, who belong to the Oneworld global airline alliance with American, British Airways, Japan Airlines and other carriers.
'Our proposal will significantly improve customer choice and convenience, produce important operating efficiencies that provide greater value to passengers and shippers, and increase competition with other alliances in thousands of origin and destination markets,' said Henry Joyner, American's senior vice president of planning.
'We believe that an alliance with antitrust immunity is of vital strategic importance and will help us remain competitive with other transatlantic alliances that already have such immunity,' he said.
American and British Airways have twice sought antitrust immunity for their trans-Atlantic partnership, which predates the Oneworld alliance. But antitrust regulators have required concessions that the carriers wouldn't accept.
American chairman and chief executive officer Gerard Arpey said last week that American was 'in a dialogue' with British Airways about how to proceed.
'Certainly, our view would be that if immunity is granted to our competitors, that the antitrust body should begin to look at the competition between alliances rather than on the city-pair basis that they have looked historically,' Mr. Arpey said.
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