American Airlines and four of its oneworld Alliance partners in Iberia, Finnair, Malev Hungarian Airlines, and Royal Jordanian Airlines filed with the United States Department of Transportation for antitrust immunity effective March 30, 2008. (7/25/2007)
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: code-sharing, frequent flyer programmes, 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.
“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 - 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,” said Joyner.
Joyner emphasised that the combined market shares of American and the other joint applicants are comparable or well below the transatlantic market shares of immunised 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.
