212 COMPETITION LAW IN TOURISM In the air transport sector, many airlines have entered into commercial relationships with foreign/domestic carriers to be able to expand their networks and to remain competitive and to deepen cooperation in a sector where full-scale mergers and acquisitions are difficult to take place. These complex agreements or arrangements may include ticketing-and-baggage agreements, joint-fare agreements, dry and wet leases, reciprocal airport agreements, code-sharing, blocked space relationships, computer reservations systems joint ventures, joint sales offices and telephone centres, e-commerce joint ventures, frequent flyer programs alliances, coordination of pricing and scheduling, pooling of traffic and revenue, and more recently, metal neutral joint ventures. Such agreements or arrangements may have adverse effects on users through preventing, restricting or distorting competition in certain conditions if no appropriate control mechanisms are put in place to avert them. b) Abuse of dominance/monopoly Behaviours falling under the abuse of a dominant position/monopoly can be broadly grouped into two categories: exclusionary abuse and exploitative abuse. The first aims at driving competitors out of the market, while the second happens when the dominant company exploits its market power against customers. Commonly raised concerns in the international air transport sector are related to predatory pricing or capacity dumping by dominant market players. c) Mergers and acquisitions Full-scale international mergers between airlines from different States are relatively rare, except in cases where specific arrangements enable each airline to preserve nationality requirements under bilateral air services agreements, particular to the air transport sector. The concentration attained through mergers and acquisitions might impede effective competition, in particular as a result of the creation or strengthening of a dominant position. A considerable body of rules has developed in the areas of airline mergers. There are strong incentives from the regulators’ perspective to encourage convergence and consistency in decision-making by different competitionauthorities in the fieldof cross-bordermergers andacquisitions, which encouraged establishing cooperation between competition authorities. d) State aid/Subsidies Any aid or subsidies granted by a State or through State resources may distort or threatens to distort competition or create inefficiencies by benefiting specific
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