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Order 2008-9-26 - IATA - Dismissing Applications and Exemption Resolutions
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International Air Transport Association Order 2008-9-26 Issued September 23, 2008 | Served September 26, 2008 Order Dismissing Applications and Exempting Resolutions Our review of the agreements, which include a number of fare construction resolutions, supports a judgment that they are not inconsistent with our Order. Obvious price-setting provisions are moved to regional conferences not covered by the Order, or rescinded entirely. These include numerous fare checks which produced higher fares for passengers with complicated itineraries. The other changes largely clarify existing provisions, and appear to be designed solely to facilitate interline service by establishing necessary standards for such service, a legitimate activity under the antitrust laws. As we noted in Order 2007-3-23, if the composite tariff conference develops agreements on standards of the kind that are permitted by the antitrust laws, the conference’s activity would be consistent with that order. We have decided to act on the resolutions before us by granting, sua sponte, an exemption from our condition on the Provisions requiring the tariff resolutions at issue to be filed for review and approval subject, where applicable, to previously imposed conditions. For example, the Department has conditioned IATA’s Permanent Effectiveness Resolution 001 to provide that any carrier or travel agent may depart from the provisions of any IATA fare construction rule where a different methodology would produce a lower constructed fare. The agreements do not appear to present the type of conduct we prohibited in the Order, and their provisions can operate fully subject to U.S. antitrust laws. We are not prepared to grant IATA’s Motion for stay of Order 2007-3-23. Any stay of the Order would involve a continuation of antitrust immunity that would, at best, be difficult to tailor, through conditions, precisely to the needs of individual conferences, unduly limiting their flexibility. Nor do we think that ad hoc applications for immunity for specific discussions affecting the covered markets is a fruitful way of completing reform of the composite conferences to comply with the Order. Absent unusual circumstances, we would expect reform discussions to take place without the need for antitrust immunity, and that IATA would file an application to exempt the resulting agreements from filing. By: Michael Reynolds |
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