RJ and four of its oneworld partners apply to DOT for antitrust immunity

The oneworld airlines which jointly filed the DOT application today are: American Airlines, Iberia, Finnair, Malev Hungarian Airlines, and Royal Jordanian.

The application seeks to allow cooperation among the five airlines in a wide variety of operational areas, including 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.

The 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 city-pair markets. An alliance with antitrust immunity is of vital strategic importance and helps remain competitive with other transatlantic alliances that already have such immunity.

The combined market shares of RJ 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.

RJ joined the oneworld airline alliance on April 1, 2007, being the first Arab airline to join any of the three global airline alliances which take up 80% of the international air transport industry.

In addition to Royal Jordanian, the oneworld partners are: American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Finnair, Iberia, Japan Airlines, LAN, Malev Hungarian Airlines and Qantas.