EDITORIAL: Easy Does It EC
<B> EDITORIAL: Easy Does It EC</B>
Business travel buyers who do any appreciable business in Europe should be on the edges of their seats waiting for the next pronouncement from Karel Van Miert, the
European Commission competition minister, who will unveil any day now his guidelines on agency and corporate client sales for international airline alliances.
While his recommendations reportedly have gone to the European Commission's secretariat, there is as yet no sign of the EC Official Journal, in which they were expected to appear last week.
That he even sees a need to issue guidelines in this area, however, suggests the possibility of forthcoming restrictions and unnecessary obstacles to business.
North American and particularly European-based travel managers should prepare to take a little time out of their summers to give Van Miert their reaction. Once the journal is published, interested parties will have 30 days in which to comment before he issues his final ruling.
Business travel buyers will have to state their case in clear terms and in significant numbers in order to be heard over the din of airline competitors which, now that Van Miert finally has pronounced the AA-BA deal simply a matter of achieving the proper slot allocation, will be haggling vociferously over the exact terms.
With his ruling, the logical course of the evolution of major air carriers seems inevitable once again: alignment and consolidation locally and globally to create fewer, albeit stronger competitors.
The airlines in part justify the decrease in competition by citing the demand from their customers for suppliers who can serve their increasingly global businesses.
What the European Commission and other public policy makers need to realize is that the service business travel customers require goes far beyond matching up flight schedules and frequent flyer programs. They need one point of contact to negotiate for and service their global companies as one entity.
This is the real value of global airlines, and the European Commission should not stand in the way.