No airline cartel: CCI

The Competition Commission of India (CCI) on Monday dismissed a complaint pertaining to alleged cartelization among various domestic airlines.

In September 2016, the CCI had directed the director general (DG), its investigation arm, to cause an investigation into the matter on "prima facie" finding that the airlines-- Jet Airways (including Jet Lite), Indigo, Spice Jet, Go Air and Air India--were exhibiting characteristics of anti-competitive conduct.

he DG had analysed the market share of five airlines on four sectors during the reference period, as well as their air fare and its determination practices in order to detect any sign of stability or parallelism, or any possibility of communication between the airlines to fix prices.

However, as brought out by the investigation, no such pattern of stability or parallelism was noticed between the airlines, rather, a significant variance was seen in the market shares of the airlines, CCI said.

The director general had said that price parallelism has become the natural outcome, but it cannot be said to be the result of any agreement or action in concert.