European Union antitrust regulators have opened an inquiry into transatlantic partnership deals between Air France-KLM, Alitalia and Delta on flights between the bloc's member countries and the United States.
The European Commission said on Friday that the probe has been ordered to find if the tie-up between the three airlines, all members of the SkyTeam airline alliance, breached EU antitrust rules, and to ensure that it does not harm passengers on EU-U.S. Routes.
The Commission will deal with the case as a matter of priority
The Franco-Dutch Air France-KLM, Italy's Alitalia and US airliner Delta signed in 2009 and 2010 agreements establishing a transatlantic joint venture focusing on the routes between Europe and North America. Pursuant to these agreements, the parties fully coordinate their transatlantic operations with respect to capacity, schedules, pricing and revenue management. They also share profits and losses of their transatlantic flights.
This partnership represents the deepest form of cooperation within SkyTeam and aims at the alignment of the parties' commercial incentives. The Commission will investigate whether the partnership may harm passengers on certain EU-U.S. routes where, in the absence of the joint venture, the parties would be providing competing services.
This could be in breach of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU (TFEU) that prohibits anticompetitive agreements. The new investigation is coherent with the Commission's recent enforcement action in relation to the transatlantic joint ventures of the two other airline alliances, Oneworld and Star.
In a separate decision, the Commission has closed initial investigation against the cooperation agreements between eight members of SkyTeam: Aeromexico, Air France, Alitalia, Continental Airlines, Czech Airlines, Delta, KLM and Korean Air Lines.
This decision was taken as part of the priority-setting process in light of significant changes in the circumstances on the relevant markets. However, the closure of proceedings does not relieve the SkyTeam members from assessing their behavior and ensuring that they comply with EU competition law, the Commission said.
SkyTeam is one of the three world-wide airline alliances. Under its umbrella the member airlines enter into various cooperation agreements in relation to passenger and cargo air transport. The scope and intensity of such cooperation vary between alliance members; so does the effect on competition.
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