Three-quarters of British Airways' corporate clients have
signed confidentiality-clause waivers allowing the airline to share data about
them with its new joint venture partners, senior BA executive Richard Tams said
on Monday. Speaking at the Guild of Travel Management Companies autumn
conference in London, Tams, United Kingdom and Ireland head of sales and
marketing for BA, said most of the remaining 25 percent are still "sitting
on the fence" and a small minority have refused to sign.
BTNreported exclusively last month that some travel buyers are declining to sign the waivers through
reluctance to share information with a joint venture they fear may offer a
worse combined deal than they currently enjoy with the airlines separately. BA officially launched its joint venture with American Airlines and Iberia last month after
receiving antitrust immunity in July.
Some buyers in the United States have complained of
aggressive sales stances by other transatlantic joint ventures, but Tams
insisted at the GTMC conference that his carrier's joint venture would behave
differently.
"There have been stories about us trying to railroad
clients into joint agreements," he said. "Having come slightly late
to the joint venture game, one of the advantages has been that we have been
able to listen to what customers want, and one thing that came across very
clearly is that they don't want a situation where they must have a deal with
all of us or none of us. That is something we are very clearly not going to do."
Tams reiterated his belief that fierce competition between
the three transatlantic joint ventures will benefit clients. "I would like
to emphasize we do not believe alliances are a barrier to competition," he
said. "We have antitrust immunity for five years only, after which it will
be reviewed. That is an incentive not to throw our weight around."
Tams was sharing the platform with two travel management
company executives, both of whom agreed with him. Tony Berry, industry and fare
distribution director for HRG, said the European Commission's competition
directorate carried out one of the most thorough investigations in its history
before giving the BA/AA/Iberia joint venture antitrust clearance. "I don't
see for one minute how that competition is going to evaporate," said
Berry. "I see competition strengthening."