American Airlines, 4 parters apply for antitrust immunity

[FA Mikey]

American Airlines and four of its Oneworld Alliance partners applied Tuesday for antitrust immunity from the U.S. Department of Transportation. The application, for immunity effective at the end of March 2008, would allow the AMR airline and its partners Iberia, Finnair, Malev Hungarian Airlines and Royal Jordanian Airlines to increase cooperation in codesharing, route and schedule planning and other areas. American Airlines - the world's largest air carrier - said the immunity would be "of vital strategic importance and will help us remain competitive with other transatlantic alliances that already have such immunity.

Come March 29, 2008 maybe they may add BA to the list for codesharing,and scheduling immunity.

 

[MAH4546]

British Airways will be added. The reason BA is not included in this one is to speed it up. Nobody is going to object to it, so these five airlines will have ATI very quickly. Not long after that, British Airways will be applying to join them. That process will be a little more controversial and probably take a lot longer. By excluding BA right now, they won't see delays in getting this part of the alliance up and running.