Jo-Achim Hamburger, global travel manager for Electrolux and leader of a consortium which signed an air deal with SN Brussels Airlines, has made a blistering attack on Lufthansa.
He said he was "shocked" by the attitude of the German carrier when he tried to negotiate the deal with them.
"They invited us to meet them and then gave us flak, saying 'We will never do another deal with you' and that 'You will be the downfall of the industry,'" Mr Hamburger said at a session at the Business Travel Days at ITB in Berlin last week.
"The airline was putting up tremendous resistance, they were almost fearful in their reaction to the deal. We were shocked by their reaction. It was almost panic.
"We demonstrated they we could give added value and we don't know why they reacted as they did.
"I am talking about Lufthansa here. They had a whole load of fears to do with the fact that their wonderful price structure on long haul routes could be undermined.
"Their re-action was as if they had met an exorcist in person. There must be a reason for this," he said.
The deal Electrolux, AstraZeneca, Ericsson, Sanvik, Scania and Volvo signed with SN in November, 2004, was on routes from Brussels to Stockholm, Gothenburg and Copenhagen.
The airline offered substantial savings and the companies guaranteed SN 90% of their volume on these routes.
Mr Hamburger said the other airlines approached, BA and SAS made clear from the start they were not interested.
He told the session that the deal had been a success with savings for the companies of up to 700,000 in the first year. SN's load factor on the routes had jumped from 40% to 60%.
Mr Hamburger said he had tried to sign a similar deal for the companies with hotel chains but this had not been successful but he declined to say why.
BTE asked Lufthansa for a response but it did not offer one.