Airlines Plead Guilty of Price Fixing

British Airways and Korean Air socked with $300M fines in ongoing investigation
By Dustin Lushing,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 2, 2007 4:28 AM CDT
Airlines Plead Guilty of Price Fixing
A British Airways plane comes in to land at Heathrow Airport in London, Wednesday, Aug. 1, 2007. A British regulator fined British Airways 121.5 million pounds (US$ 246 million; euro 180 million) on Wednesday after the airline admitted colluding with rival Virgin Atlantic over fuel surcharges on long-haul...   (Associated Press)

British Airways and Korean Air have agreed to plead guilty and pay $300 million each in criminal fines for engaging in massive conspiracies to fix the prices of passenger and cargo flights for the past six years, the US Justice Department said yesterday. BA will pony up another $247million fine to the UK government for discussing fuel surcharges with rival Virgin Atlantic Airways.

British Airways flights between the UK and the US were artificially jacked up, and so-called fuel surcharges surged from $10 in 2004 to $110 in 2006. The plea bargains are the first in a probe of airliner price-fixing schemes that officials called the largest ever investigated. (More Korean Air stories.)

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