United continues to put brakes on American and Philippine Airlines codeshare

United Airlines (UA, Chicago O’Hare) continues to frustrate long-standing attempts by competitor American Airlines (AA, Dallas/Fort Worth) and Philippine Airlines (PR, Manila Ninoy Aquino Int’l) (PAL) to initiate code-shares between the United States and the Philippines via Japan.

The airlines’ application has been subject to a ping-pong match of filings between the applicants on the one side, and United on the other, over the past 11 months.

In a February 22, 2022, regulatory filing to the US Department of Transport (DOT), United reiterated its previous calls on the DOT to continue to defer approval of American and PAL’s joint application for the codeshares until United’s own ongoing slot access issues at Manila Ninoy Aquino Int’l had been “adequately resolved”. It said the applicants’ latest filings had contained “strawman arguments” to convince the DOT to approve their application without further delay.

On February 11, 2022, American and PAL had reiterated previous requests for the immediate authorisation of their application – first filed almost two years ago on March 17, 2020 – for exemption authority to implement a codeshare partnership inked on March 6, 2020.

According to the initial regulatory filing, PAL would codeshare on eight American domestic routes from Los Angeles Int’l, the US city it has the most flights to. These would include Atlanta Hartsfield Jackson, Denver Int’l, Houston Intc’l, Las Vegas Harry Reid, Miami Int’l, New Orleans Int’l, Orlando Int’l, and Washington Dulles.

American would not codeshare on PAL’s flights between the Philippines and the continental US but would fly to Tokyo Narita and then codeshare on PAL from Tokyo to Manila Ninoy Aquino Int’l and Cebu. American also sought to codeshare on PAL’s flights from Manila to Honolulu, Hawaii, and Guam Int’l.

In its latest response, United dismissed as “simply false” assertions by the applicants that its slot issues at Manila dating from 2019 had been resolved. Instead, United remained without slots at the right times; and had returned slots provided for Summer 2022 because they had been unusable, it said. It reiterated its willingness to find a solution in discussions with the DOT and Philippines authorities so that all parties could move forward.

American and PAL had declared United’s complaints as “unfounded”, “untenable”, and aimed at extending the nearly two-year delay on the codeshare application. They claimed United’s argument, if adopted by the DOT, “would subject foreign airlines whose hub is slot-constrained to unjustified licensing delays on the basis of other airlines not receiving slots at the specific times requested”. “Such a situation undermines the fundamental tenets of international air transport agreements. If there is a real airport access problem in violation of the US-Philippines Air Transport Services Agreement, United has the ability to file under the International Air Transportation Fair Competitive Practices Act,” they charged.

In a previous filing, the applicants had also pointed out that slot-allocation at Manila was overseen by private Australian airport coordinator Airport Coordination Australia (ACA), while access to the terminal was controlled by the Manila International Airport Authority (MIAA), processes over which PAL and American had no influence.

They also pointed out that PAL, which has since emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, was not legally obligated, nor did it intend to reduce its Manila slot portfolio to accommodate other carriers.

United had complained that it did not receive incremental slots resulting from PAL having curtailed its flights at Manila during bankruptcy protection. While acknowledging a COVID-19 linked slot waiver granted by the Manila coordinator for winter 2021-2022, United maintained the “lack of clarity and transparency about what is going on with current and future slots at Manila is reason enough for the Department to continue to hold actioning the American/PAL application until United’s access issues are resolved”.