The boss of Heathrow’s biggest customer, BA, only discovered that building the airport’s planned third runway would require the demolition of his airline’s head office after looking at a map. Willie Walsh, the CE of BA’s parent company IAG, claimed that despite the group being responsible for about half of all flights at the London hub, he received no formal warning of the proposed demolition. He said: “We were never actually informed or advised by Heathrow that they intended to knock down our headquarters.” Both IAG and British Airways are based at Waterside in Harmondsworth, which opened in 1998 at a cost of GBP200m and sits in a 115-hectare manmade park. Walsh said the HQ was “a fantastic environmental achievement on our part”. However, it looks unlikely to stay that way. “The first I saw of it was when the Airport Commission report came out and I saw a map and I thought, that looks very close to Waterside,” Walsh said. “Then I discovered it actually went right through Waterside.” Walsh’s grievance over his doomed HQ has been compounded by the prospect of being effectively charged for the compensation bill.<br/>
oneworld
Chile's FNE competition regulator said a joint-business agreement that Santiago-headquartered LATAM Airlines inked with American Airlines and IAG's BA and Iberia risks increasing fares and lowering quality on routes. The opinion, in a 163-page document elaborated by the FNE and seen by Reuters on Tuesday, could increase the chances that Chile's TDLC anti-monopoly court nixes the deal. The agreement between LATAM, American, and IAG seeks to help the airlines coordinate schedules and prices for flights, similar to the North Atlantic revenue-sharing agreement which already exists between IAG and American Airlines . "The present operation creates a risk of increasing fares and decreasing the quality of routes encompassed in the geographical area of the agreement since both parties would be acting as a single economic agent, with important market participations," the document said. LATAM said that the agreement would benefit passengers with lower fares, access to a bigger network of destinations, better itineraries and flight connections. In Chile, the TDLC, a separate judicial body, will have the final word on whether the agreement restricts or endangers competition. "LATAM is confident that the TDLC will recognise the benefits of this agreement for Chile," LATAM said.<br/>