The European Commission is taking a more aggressive stance than the U.S. Department of Transportation regarding a proposed alliance between European and American airlines. But the EU position is still kinder than what the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division wanted.
If approved, the alliance would allow British Airways, American Airlines, and Iberia to jointly market, schedule and price flights.
Both the European Commission and the Transportation Department have to sign off on the alliance in order for it to go into effect. The Justice Department’s role is only advisory.
The EU is considering a proposal by the airlines to make some changes to the alliance in order to gain approval. According to the proposal currently being tested by Brussels regulators, the airlines would lease takeoff and landing slots at London’s Heathrow Airport so that other competitors can operate two additional daily flights to New York and Boston and one additional flight per day to Miami and Dallas.
The Justice Department had singled out those routes for scrutiny and said that fares between the American Airlines hubs in Chicago, Miami and Dallas and British Airways’ hub in London would increase if the alliance was approved. The DOJ suggested the Transportation Department should take some routes out of the plan and force the airlines to give up slots at Heathrow in order to alleviate its concerns.
In its filing about the case, the Justice Department did not specify a number of slots. In a previous attempt to gain approval for the alliance in 2001, the DOT had asked the airlines to surrender 16 slots per day.
This time around, the Transportation Department only asked the airlines to give up four pairs of slots at Heathrow.
The European plan is asking for more specific commitments than DOT, but did not suggest taking any routes out of the grant of antitrust immunity, as DOJ had recommended.
