Europe’s consumers deserve a competitive European airline market

Today, eu travel tech joined a range of organizations representing consumers, air passengers, airports, and air ticket intermediaries to call on the European Commission to carefully and critically review the ongoing European airline merger wave.

Against the backdrop of ongoing attempts by Lufthansa Group to acquire ITA Airways and IAG to acquire Air Europa, it is vital that the Commission’s merger review process safeguard healthy airline competition in Europe.

“The current consolidation wave is a worrying trend for all those interested in strong airline competition, connectivity, and quality of service. Experience from markets like the US show the detrimental impacts of endless airline consolidation, leading to dissatisfaction across the board.

The past years have also clearly shown that dominant transport operators do not only further entrench their strong market positions, but routinely abuse them, notably by discriminating against intermediaries, to the detriment of passengers and competitors. The European Commission must fully play its crucial role as the guardian of competitive European markets”, said Emmanuel Mounier, Secretary General of eu travel tech.

Please find the full statement here.