United continues to put brakes on American, PAL codeshare

United Airlines continues to frustrate long-standing attempts by competitor American Airlines and Philippine Airlines 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.<br/>