Not mincing its words, the DOJ described the international carriers as “criminals”, who together with Lufthansa, British Airways, Korean Air, Japan Airlines and Qantas in the past few months have boosted the DOJ coffers with a total of US$1.27 billion in fines.
Not surprisingly, the Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation concluded that these fines will be passed on to shareholders and, in some cases, tax payers in the form of lower dividends.
Sadly, this saga which comes at the time when airlines, faced with unrealistic fuel prices, could find better use for the millions of dollars, than paying the DOJ fines.
Even sadder is the fact that in this entire drama only one personal criminal charge has been laid and the sacrificial lamb, Bruce McCaff rey, Qantas’ former highest-ranking US-based executive, will serve eight months in a US prison.
It is probably safe to say that, compared to many other more senior managers among the airlines involved, McCaff rey happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and is taking the brunt of the, as yet unfinished, DOJ actions.
The price fixing agreements involved hundreds of managers, across four or five years – at least. So it is safe to conclude that this network of activity in most cases must have been evident, if not actively supported, at very high levels among the airlines involved.
According to the Centre for Asia Pacifi c Aviation: “There are some very senior figures in the industry today who were well aware of what was going on. Hopefully their attitudes to this activity will change as a result of the DoJ’s action, even though they will never be brought to account personally.”
Will this be the end of the US and European antitrust investigations? Probably not, as the most recent plea bargains are just the top of the proverbial iceberg with further actions against forwarders anticipated, not to mention the possible class action suits already announced by shippers.