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Linea Aerea Nacional Chile, S.A. and American Airlines, Inc.
October 7, 1997
Re: Joint Application for Statements of Authorization
American Airlines, Inc. (American) and Linea Aerea Nacional Chile, S.A. (Lan Chile) hereby jointly apply, under 14 C.F.R. Part 207 (in the case of American) and 14 C.F.R. Part 212 (in the case of Lan Chile) for statements of authorization to engage in the reciprocal codeshare services.
Counsel: Zuckert Scoutt, Charles Simpson for Lan Chile / American, Carl Nelson
American Airlines and LAN Chile (Notice of Intent of Continental Airlines to File Answer)
October 17, 1997
On October 7, 1997, American and Lan Chile filed a joint application for approval of reciprocal code-share services, and Lan Chile and American filed separate docketed exemption applications seeking additional route authority for the code-share services. Continental is reviewing the applications and expects to submit a consolidated response within the time for answering the exemption applications since the requests for statements of authorization and the exemption applications raise the same issues.
Counsel: Crowell Moring, Steven Mirmina for Continental, 202 624 2500
Re: Joint Application of American and Iberia
United intends to answer on October 22, 1997
Counsel: Ginsburg Feldman, Joel Burton, 202-637-9195
Lineas Aereas Nacional Chile, S.A. - Lan Chile and American Airlines, Inc. (Exemption and Statements of Authorization, US-Chile)
OST-97-2982 | Undocketed | October 31, 1997
Motion for Leave to File and Reply of American Airlines
Counsel: American, Carl Nelson, 202-496-5647
Consolidated Reply of Lan Chile
The Department must grant Lan Chile's applications and reject any suggestion that action on the applications should be delayed pending an investigation of relationships that have nothing to do with Lan Chile. Lan Chile wants to initiate its planned codeshare services with American at the earliest possible date, as allowed by the existing U.S.-Chile bilateral agreement. Any action other than the timely approval of Lan Chile's applications would place the United States in an untenable position under the bilateral agreement and could seriously jeopardize the prospects for an effective open-skies agreement with Chile.
Attachment: United Press Release Announcing Global Network Expands to South America, 10/22/97
Counsel: Zuckert Scoutt, Charles Simpson, 202-298-8660
American Airlines, Inc. et. al., and LAN Chile, S.A. / Approval of and Antitrust Immunity for Alliance Agreement | LAN Chile / Exemption | American Airlines, Inc. et. al., and LAN Chile, S.A. / Reciprocal Codeshare Services
OST-97-3285 | OST-97-2982 | Undocketed | March 9, 1998
Confidentiality Affidavits of Allied Pilots Association
American Airlines, Inc. and Linea Aerea Nacional Chile, S.A. (Antitrust Immunity)
OST-97-3285 | OST-97-2982 | Undocketed | March 13, 1998
Consolidated Answer of Continental Airlines
Failure to deny swiftly antitrust immunity for the alliance between American and its chief competitor on U.S.-Chile routes would confirm to the few remaining unaligned Latin American airlines that they must join the expanding American empire or be crushed by it, teach foreign countries that the U.S. will pay for nominal open skies with approval of, and antitrust immunity for, anticompetitive alliances that perpetuate the restrictive status quo and advise U.S. airlines attempting to compete with the American juggernaut in Latin America that the Department will allow American and its allies to drive them out of the market.
Counsel: Continental and Crowell Moring, Bruce Keiner, 202-624-2500
The evidence of record overwhelmingly establishes that the proposed alliance is anticompetitive and anti-consumer, lacks countervailing public interest benefits, and should be denied. Grant of the application would further entrench American's position as the dominant carrier to Chile, in particular, and Latin American, in general, and would foreclose significant competitive challenge to American through a code-sharing arrangement between Lan Chile and another U. S. carrier.
Counsel: Delta and Shaw Pittman, Robert Cohn, 202-663-8060
The alliance proposed between American and Lan Chile, no less than the alliance proposed between American and the TACA carriers, poses substantial risks to competition that cannot be offset by bringing into force an open skies agreement with Chile. Rather than promote competition, the grant of American's and Lan Chile's joint application for immunity from U.S. antitrust laws would: further entrench American as the dominant carrier in U.S.-Chile and U.S.-Latin America air travel markets; enable American to increase its dominant position at the strategic Miami gateway, which is used by more than 62% of all U.S.-Latin America air travelers; preclude United (and other U.S. carriers) from entering into an alliance agreement with Lan Chile that would facilitate the expansion of United's Latin America route network, and thereby enhance inter-network competition between United and American at Miami and throughout Latin America to the benefit of consumers; and significantly increase the pressure on the Department to approve other alliances between American and major Latin American carriers, effectively excluding other U.S. carriers from having an opportunity to develop alliance relationships with these carriers that would provide them cost-efficient means to extend their on-line networks into Central and South American markets, and thereby to initiate much broader network-to-network competition with American throughout Latin America.
Counsel: United and Ginsburg Feldman, Joel Burton, 202-637-9130
American Airlines, Inc. and Linea Aerea Nacional Chile, S.A. - Lan Chile (Antitrust Immunity)
OST-97-3285 | OST-97-2982 | Undocketed | March 24, 1998
Joint Reply of American and Lan Chile
The opposing carriers are engaged in a cynical effort, supported by speculative doomsday rhetoric and little more, to invoke DOT assistance and force Lan Chile to do business with them instead of with American. Their motivations are transparent, and their arguments amount to a manifesto for selective government intervention into the free market process.
Counsel: American, Carl Nelson, 202-496-5647, carl_nelson@amrcorp.com / Zuckert Scoutt, Charles Simpson, 202-298-8660 for Lan Chile
The two carriers claim that this agreement will allow them to capture the synergies of their respective route networks, establish a seamless air transport system through network coordination. achieve competitive economies of scale, and greatly enhance their competitiveness vis-a-vis other alliances. American Airlines and Lan Chile further claim that these benefits are expected to result in lower costs, enabling them to serve more efficiently thousands of city-pairs and provide the public with greater service options at a lower cost. The centerpiece of the proposed American-Lan Chile alliance is the request for antitrust immunity. This immunity would allow them to operate outside the scope of U.S. antitrust laws by being able to engage in joint pricing, joint marketing, joint sales campaigns and joint commission programs, without legal repercussion should these efforts prove anticompetitive or otherwise not in the public interest.
Counsel: Aeromexico and Manatt Phelps, Irwin Altschuler, 202-463-4300 and Verner Liipfert, William Evans, 202-371-6000
Consolidated Reply of Regional Business Partnership - Newark
The Regional Business Partnership urges the Department to halt American's preemptive Latin American strategy, heed the clear message of the Department of Justice that overlapping code-share alliances wreak havoc on competition without countervailing benefits and deny the American/Lan Chile requests for code-share authority and antitrust immunity to preserve viable competition by alternative U.S. gateways and additional carriers on U.S.-South America routes.
By: Samuel Crane, 973-242-6237
American Airlines, Inc. and Linea Aerea Nacional Chile, S.A. - Lan Chile (Antitrust Immunity)
OST-97-3285 | OST-97-2982 | Undocketed | April 7, 1998
The Joint Applicants' pie-in-the sky description of open skies and their attempt to cast Continental, Delta and United as villains do not withstand scrutiny. While American and Lan Chile continue to advance the absurd argument that a de facto merger of the two carriers controlling 70% of the U.S.-Chile seats is in the public interest, American's Chairman and CEO is showing exactly why an American/Lan Chile combination is bad for consumers and bad for competition.
Counsel: Continental and Crowell Moring, Bruce Keiner, 202-624-2500
American Airlines, Inc. and Linea Aerea Nacional Chile, S.A.-Lan Chile (Antitrust Immunity)
OST-97-3285 | OST-97-2982 | Undocketed | April 9, 1998
Motion for Leave to File and Response of American Airlines to United and Continental
United and Continental have offered no legitimate basis for the Department to accept their unauthorized pleadings. As they have done so frequently in other proceedings, United and Continental have merely reheated the same rhetoric they served up in their initial comments, without providing anything new. Continental's document is particularly offensive to orderly administrative procedures. Continental devotes a good portion of its paper to a phony "surreply" to Newark and to Aeromexico. Newark, of course, is a Continental proxy that filed a "consolidated reply" on March 24, 1998, when it should have submitted an objection on March 13, 1998, as provided by the Department's order. And Aeromexico, as we noted in our motion of March 27, 1998 to strike, is a codeshare ally of both United and Delta, and also submitted transparently late objections under the guise of a "reply." It is clearly an abuse of process for opposing parties to submit a series of unauthorized pleadings, and then continue the charade by "responding" to one another.
Counsel: American, Carl Nelson, 202-496-5647, carl_nelson@amrcorp.com
American Airlines, Inc. and Linea Aerea Nacional Chile, S.A.-Lan Chile (Antitrust Immunity)
OST-97-3285 | OST-97-2982 | Undocketed | April 10, 1998
Answer of Lan Chile to Motion for Leave to File
It is a disservice to the applicants and to the Department Staff to have to review and consider repetitive pleadings from parties whose true objectives are not to "complete the record" but, rather, to create delay. Lan Chile requests the Department to reject all of the unauthorized pleadings filed to date, advise the parties that it will accept no future unauthorized pleadings, and devote its efforts to the prompt approval of the pending applications.
Counsel: Zuckert Scoutt, Charles Simpson, 202-298-8660
OST-97-3285 | OST-97-2982 | Undocketed | OST-96-1700 | April 23, 1998
Re: Confidentiality Affidavits
Counsel: James Hoffman, Marta Wagner, 202-496-0500
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