Brussels, 27/04/2000 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission should announce on Friday that it authorised the creation of a joint venture for the provision of airline ticketing systems and travel agency on the internet, between the internet subsidiary of Telefonica, Terra Network and Continental Airline.
The parties have submitted undertakings that seem to have satisfied the European Competition services. Furthermore, the Commission seems to have considered that the travel agency market via the Internet is still reduced to create abuses of dominant positions.
The Alliance between Telefonica and Amadeus is in the Framework of the diversification policy of one of the main global computer reservation systems, ahead of its main competitor Galileo (held by a dozen airlines including United Airlines, British Airways, Swissair, KLM). Based in Spain, Amadeus manages the reservation system of some 500 airlines and more than 48,000 travel agencies throughout the world. Thanks to its alliance with Telefonica in Spain, and more recently with British Telecom in the United Kingdom and Ireland, Amadeus wins direct access to consumers through Internet portals managed by Telecommunications operators. The alliance with Telefonica allows it access to Spanish surfers and 26 Spanish and Portuguese speaking counties.
According to estimates used by the Spanish daily El Pais, Internet tourism reservations will double by 2001, reaching a value of some USD 20 billion.