American Airlines, Finnair, Iberia, Malév and RJ apply for anti-trust immunity

25 juillet 2007

American Airlines, Finnair, Iberia, Malév Hungarian Airlines and Royal Jordanian today filed with the United States Department of Transportation (DOT) for anti-trust immunity effective 30 March 2008.

The application seeks to allow the five airlines to cooperate in a wide variety of operational areas that will provide a more seamless travel experience for customers. Those areas include: codesharing, frequent flyer programs, route and schedule planning, advertising and marketing, pricing and yield management, revenue allocation, ground handling, cargo services, information technologies and distribution systems, and several other areas.

American's Senior Vice-President Planning Henry Joyner said: "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.  We believe that an alliance with anti-trust immunity is of vital strategic importance and will help us remain competitive with other transatlantic alliances that already have such immunity."

He emphasized that the combined market shares of American and the other joint applicants are comparable or well below the transatlantic market shares of immunized members of the competing Star and SkyTeam alliances.

Each of the joint applicants will retain its own separate and independent corporate and national identity under the proposed application.

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