Five year renewal of existing pact in draft determination.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has just announced that it’s proposing to grant authorisation for Virgin Australia and Delta Air Lines to continue to coordinate their operations between Australia and the USA for a further five years.
The draft decision includes the granting of interim authorisation which will take effect from the expiry of the existing authorisation, and allows VA and DL to offer a single integrated network comprising their flights between Australia and the USA as well as their respective domestic networks in each country.
“The ACCC has reached the view that the alliance is likely to result in public benefit that would outweigh the detriment to the public through any lessening of competition,” said ACCC Commissioner, Dr Jill Walker.
The carrier’s combined market share on the Sydney to Los Angeles route is about 35%, the ACCC noted.
Submissions on the draft determination are now being sought, with a deadline of 26 June 2015.
More details in today’s issue of Travel Daily.