Brussels, 22/06/2009 (Agence Europe) - On Monday 22 June, the European Commission approved the proposed acquisition of SN Airholding (SNAH), the holding company of the Belgian commercial airline SN Brussels Airlines, by Deutsche Lufthansa AG of Germany. The decision is conditional upon the implementation of a set of remedies, offered by Lufthansa to alleviate the Commission's competition concerns.
Lufthansa is a full-service air carrier with hubs at Frankfurt and Munich airports, and a base at Düsseldorf airport. It also controls Swiss, based at Zurich airport, Air Dolomiti, Eurowings and low-cost carrier Germanwings. Lufthansa's proposal to acquire bmi was cleared by the Commission on 14 May 2009. SNAH is the holding company of Brussels Airlines, the Belgian commercial airline active in the transport of both passengers and cargo mainly in Europe and to some destinations in Africa.
The in-depth investigation, opened by the Commission on 26 January 2009, revealed that the merger of Lufthansa and SNAH, as originally proposed, would have raised competition concerns on the routes Brussels-Frankfurt, Brussels-Munich, Brussels-Hamburg and Brussels-Zürich.
To assuage the Commission's concerns, Lufthansa made the commitment to offer slots that would allow new entrants to operate flights on each of the four routes where the Commission identified concerns. These proposed commitments provide for an efficient and timely slot allocation mechanism. Furthermore, any new entrant will obtain grandfathering rights over the relevant slots, once it has operated a route for a certain pre-determined period of time. Ancillary remedies, such as interlining, special prorate or code-share agreements and the participation in Frequent Flyer Programmes are also planned. The Commission concluded that these commitments made the entry of new operators likely. The remedies, it pointed out, “not only target the problem of slot congestion, which is an important entry barrier on the problematic routes, but generally enhance the attractiveness for new entry on these routes”. (O.L./transl.rt)