International airline alliances: EC competition law / US antitrust law and international air transport

Book abstract:

Airlines have historically been seen by nation states as a badge of virility, which has encouraged distortion of market forces through subsidised state ownership in direct contradiction to the aims of the Treaty of Rome. The EU policy of liberalisation has changed all that and national carriers have been forced to compete on equal terms - new players in the market have threatened the hold of the major carriers, who have responded by forming anti-competitive alliances which endeavour to defeat competition by collaboration. This work studies those alliances and their status within EU competition law and US antitrust law.

The book is organised over six chapters. The first chapter offers, by way of introduction, the legal and historical background to international airline alliance. Chapters two and three present an overview of EC competition law and US antitrust law and their respective applications to such alliances. Chapter four presents a comparison of the two regulatory regimes. The strains created by the applications of different competition laws to international economic activities are explored in chapter five. The conclusions arising from the earlier chapters together with recommendations for the future are discussed in the final chapter six. The concept of creating a level playing field for regulatory legislation in the airline industry may still be a case of 'pie in the sky'.

The work will interest all those engaged in competition law but specifically those with an interest in airline regulation or deregulation.

Dr Angela Cheng-Jui Lu is an aviation law consultant based in Brussels.