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International Air Transport Association Order 2006-12-4 Issued December 4, 2006 | Served December 7, 2006 Order Approving and Granting Antitrust Immunity The agreement consists of existing resolutions and recommended practices and four new resolutions affecting passenger services worldwide. The existing resolutions address formats and procedures relating to the issuance of electronic and paper tickets, boarding passes, and other travel documents; interline traffic agreements; industry discount messages; general conditions of carriage; and online married segment control. The amendments proposed largely involve non-substantive changes of a technical, editorial or administrative nature to existing approved resolutions and recommended practices, and appear to be in conformity with our substantive policies and concerns. As such, they raise no public interest issues, and will be approved. We will also approve the four new resolutions. Resolution 725c (Electronic Miscellaneous Changes Order - Airline), and Resolution 725f (Electronic Miscellaneous Charges Order - Neutral ) provide standards and technical specifications together with messaging matrices for the issuance and honoring of electronic miscellaneous charges orders by airlines and agents respectively. Resolution 792 (Bar Coded Boarding Pass) provides technical specifications for the issuance of bar-coded boarding passes, and Recommended Practice 1776a (Seamless Availability and Selective Query) provides guidelines for application on a bilateral basis of mechanisms to control seamless availability queries in order to facilitate management of the reservations process. We find that the approved resolutions are not adverse to the public interest, in violation of the Code, or likely to lessen competition substantially. Furthermore, we conclude that the approved portions of the agreement should be granted immunity from the operation of the antitrust laws to the extent necessary to permit their implementation. In general, they amend existing provisions already approved and immunized by the Department. As a result, none raises immunity issues not previously considered, and the conferral of immunity upon them is consistent with our policy of conferring immunity on amendments coextensively with the underlying agreements. By: Paul Gretch |
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