Article 4
This Decision is addressed to: Austrian Airlines Österreichische Luftverkehrs AG Fontanastr. 1 PO Box 50 A - 1107 Vienna Deutsche Lufthansa Aktiengesellschaft Von-Gablenz-Straße 2-6 D - 50679 Cologne Done at Brussels, 5 July 2002. For the Commission Mario Monti Member of the Commission (1) OJ L 374, 31.12.1987, p. 1. (2) OJ L 240, 24.8.1992, p. 18. (3) OJ C 193, 11.7.2000, p. 7. (4) OJ C 356, 14.12.2000, p. 5. (5) Business secret. (6) One direction, 1999 figures. (7) For example, Lufthansa offers a direct flight from Frankfurt to Kiev, whereas the AuA Frankfurt-Kiev flight involves a transfer in Vienna. (8) OJ C 66, 2.3.1998, p. 1. (9) See Commission Decision of 11 August 1999 in Case COMP/JV.19 - KLM-Alitalia: http://europa.eu.int/comm/competition/mergers/cases. (10) The Parties argue in this respect that high-speed trains and the car offer alternative transport modes in competition with air transport for distances of less than 600 km. (11) Generally speaking, business travellers are more time-sensitive than leisure travellers and tend to book fully flexible tickets. The second group of passengers are not time-sensitive but pay more attention to the price. These passengers accept longer journey times and may choose indirect flights if they are less expensive than direct ones. (12) This conclusion is generally backed up by the findings of the Commission's investigation in the KLM-Alitalia case. The Commission found that the proportion of travellers using indirect flights on the Amsterdam-Rome and Amsterdam-Milan routes was very low. This suggest that neither category of passenger (time-sensitive or non-time-sensitive) considers indirect flights to be substitutable for direct flights. See Commission decision of 11 August 1999 in KLM-Alitalia. (13) The Parties have claimed that passengers living in Voralberg (the westernmost part of Austria) would prefer Zürich airport to Innsbruck. At the time of the conclusion of the agreement, Swissair operated five flights daily from Zürich to Berlin. Such passengers would therefore have the choice between Swissair and AuA/LH. (14) Such an exception may exist for non-time-sensitive travellers living in the catchment areas for Innsbruck and Salzburg who wish to travel from Munich to other German destinations since competitors of Lufthansa operate on these routes. (15) For example, on the Munich-Salzburg, Munich-Linz and Munich-Vienna routes. (16) Rheintalflug operated 86 flights between Vienna and Friedrichshafen in 1998. However, Rheintalflug was taken over by AuA in 2001. (17) For example, to fly from Vienna to the United States, a passenger may fly direct, or indirect via Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Paris, London, etc. He or she would thus have the choice of several competing airlines. (18) Regional transfer passengers take a regional flight before or after flying on an Austrian-German route (regional transfer). A passenger who wishes to travel from Klagenfurt to Leipzig may do so via Frankfurt, for example. However, such passengers, like direct travellers, depend as a rule on one of the Parties for at least one section of their journey. (19) Article 53 of the EEA Agreement contains the same provision as Article 81 of the EC Treaty. All references to Article 81 of the EC Treaty should be understood to extend automatically to Article 53 of the EEA Agreement. (20) For instance, a non-time-sensitive passenger travelling from Hamburg to Rome could have chosen either to fly direct with Lufthansa or indirect with AuA via Innsbruck. (21) For example, on routes between Austria and Germany some 38 % of all AuA customers fly under a "corporate customer deal".