India’s antitrust agency has opened fresh probes of airlines and tiremakers over allegations of cartel behavior, the regulator’s Chairman Ashok Chawla said.
All domestic carriers are being reviewed, Chawla, 64, said in an interview in New Delhi on Wednesday. He didn’t name any airlines or tiremakers. If cartels are found, fines of as much as 10 percent of a company’s revenue or profit could be imposed.
The charges, if proven, would be a blow to India’s debt-laden airlines, which have lost an average of $22 every time a passenger has stepped on board in the past seven years. Chawla said he expects many more merger and acquisition antitrust cases over the next five years, signaling a bigger role for a watchdog that only became fully functional in 2009.
“Let’s be honest, airlines do enter into cartels,” said Mark D. Martin, chief executive officer of Dubai-based aviation advisory company Martin Consulting LLC. “How else do you explain exactly the same price charged by all airlines on a peak travel market like Delhi-Goa?”
12/02/15 Anurag Kotoky/Vrishti Beniwal/Bloomberg
To Read the News in full at Source, Click the Headline
All domestic carriers are being reviewed, Chawla, 64, said in an interview in New Delhi on Wednesday. He didn’t name any airlines or tiremakers. If cartels are found, fines of as much as 10 percent of a company’s revenue or profit could be imposed.
The charges, if proven, would be a blow to India’s debt-laden airlines, which have lost an average of $22 every time a passenger has stepped on board in the past seven years. Chawla said he expects many more merger and acquisition antitrust cases over the next five years, signaling a bigger role for a watchdog that only became fully functional in 2009.
“Let’s be honest, airlines do enter into cartels,” said Mark D. Martin, chief executive officer of Dubai-based aviation advisory company Martin Consulting LLC. “How else do you explain exactly the same price charged by all airlines on a peak travel market like Delhi-Goa?”
12/02/15 Anurag Kotoky/Vrishti Beniwal/Bloomberg
