A group of corporate travel buyers and industry suppliers, helmed by the Business Travel Coalition, today urged the European Parliament to move forward with revisions its Transport Committee made to the Computer Reservation System Code of Conduct that change its definition of a parent carrier.
Member of European Parliament Timothy Kirkhope published a draft report on behalf of the Transport Committee, dated March 18, with several amendments to the European Commission's definition. Some critics charged the European Commission's existing definition would give Amadeus and its airline stakeholders a preferred position in some European markets. European Commission transport officials had maintained the parent carrier definition did not apply to Amadeus, of which Air France/KLM, Lufthansa and Iberia own stakes of 23.6 percent, 11.5 percent and 11.7 percent, respectively
(BTNonline, Nov. 19, 2007).
"History has demonstrated the painful lesson that whenever airlines hold financial interests in CRSs, they inevitably will engage in competitive abuses in both the airline and airline distribution sectors-unless this misconduct is effectively restrained by clear rules. Since nearly all corporate travel to this day is booked by travel agencies equipped with CRSs, the issue of getting the code right is of especial significance to business travelers," said a letter dated April 3 that includes signatories from more than 100 companies, including travel agencies, travel suppliers and travel buyers from such corporations as DuPont, Philips Electronics and Trane.
When the European Commission passed its finalized code to parliament in November, it defined parent carriers as those that "directly or indirectly, alone or jointly with others, owns or effectively controls a system vendor, as well as any air carrier or rail transport operator which it owns or effectively controls." However, transport officials asserted that definition did not apply to Amadeus.
Among new language inserted into the Kirkhope draft, that definition is expanded to read, "parent carrier means any air carrier or rail-transport operator which directly or indirectly, alone or jointly with others, participates in the capital, or effectively controls, or has the legal right to nominate any executive or any member of the board of directors, supervisory board or other governing body of a system vendor."
The signatories applauded the revisions and urged parliament to adopt them into the code of conduct. "Accordingly, we call on the Parliament to close this dangerous loophole by amending the definition of parent carrier so as to leave no doubt that, given their ownership interests in Amadeus and their representation on its board, Air France, Iberia and Lufthansa remain parent carriers and must respect the historic safeguards against competitive abuses that have long applied to parent carriers," the letter said.