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Article Excerpt
The U.S. Department of Transportation late last month gave Continental, Delta and Northwest airlines final approval for their tripartite codeshare arrangement but several conditions on joint corporate and travel agency bids to which the carriers agreed remain unclear.
Meanwhile, United and US Airways continued to align services, marketing and sales programs, including recent efforts to enhance corporate contracts. DOT also recently granted American Airlines tentative approval for limited code sharing with British Airways (see story, page 19).
The Continental-Delta-Northwest agreement, which included compromises on airport facilities and the total number of codeshare flights permissible, has raised many corporate contracting questions among travel buyers, agents and the airlines themselves.
"The wording is very soft and there are lots of loopholes," said Ed Tobin, an air procurement consultant with Eclipse Advisors, a division of Rosenbluth International. "It is hard to discern exactly how all this will play out."
"My perspective is that the carriers purposely wanted the language, as it relates to restrictions on corporate contracts, to be as open and fluid as possible," added Suzanne Fletcher, chair of the aviation committee for the National Business Travel Association.
Even the most straightforward of the conditions--joint bids must be requested in writing by the potential client--has caused concern. In its notice of final approval, DOT...
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