BRITISH AIRWAYS, or rather chairman Martin Broughton, emphasised at the
company”s AGM last week he is hoping for a swift outcome to the Office
of Fair Trading”s investigation into alleged cartel activity by a
number of airlines. He pointed out that the airline industry, the
company and two members of its staff ” commercial director Martin
George and head of communications Iain Burns ” had been ”subjected to
intense public scrutiny and speculation, none of which can be commented
on because this is a criminal as well as a civil investigation”.
The investigation focuses on long haul passenger fuel surcharges only,
he said, with ”no suggestion of any breach of competition law” in
relation to short haul surcharges. He noted that BA first introduced
long haul fuel surcharges in May 2004 and has raised them since in
response to increasing oil prices, ”albeit that they do not recover
the full costs of those increases”. In the 12 months to end-March
2006, the surcharges accounted for about 3% of BA”s total turnover, and in
the previous year for less than 1%. Willie Walsh took up the cudgel in
herited from Rod Eddington urging the Government to push ahead with
approval for Heathrow to build a short third runway, saying it was
”absolutely essential” to reverse the airport”s slide versus European
mainland rivals.
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