The three airlines seeking antitrust immunity to coordinate transpacific services expect Japan to approve their application in just four months.
All Nippon Airways Inc. and partners United Airlines, a unit of UAL Corp., and Continental Airlines Inc. lodged an application with U.S. regulators Wednesday.
The time line outlined in their regulatory filing could place pressure on U.S. regulators to act quickly at a time of increasing global scrutiny of airline alliances.
The last two immunity requests before the U.S. Department of Transportation over-ran their statutory review period.
The Japanese government has said it expects the U.S. to rule on transpacific antitrust applications by October 2010 before it will enact a landmark new aviation deal outlined earlier this month.
The three airlines, all members of the Star Alliance, said in the filing that they expect Japan to approve their bid to coordinate fares, schedules and sales in around four months.
The trio declined to say when they would make an application in Japan. However, the country’s transport ministry has said it expects airlines to make their bids by mid-February to cement the U.S. open-skies pact.
The Star partners noted that the Japanese authorities have never reviewed a three-way application for immunity, but are developing appropriate procedures.
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The 63-page application is closely modeled on that approved by the DoT earlier this year when Continental joined Star, a move that raised disquiet among some U.S. competition regulators.
However, the airlines said they did not expect a repeat of the route “carve-outs” contained in that approval. The DoT barred Star members from deepening co-operation on some routes that it believed were dominated by the alliance.
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