U antitrust regulators have given British Airways-owner IAG more time to offer fresh remedies to ease their concerns about its bid for full control of Spain's Air Europa. IAG, which also owns Spanish carrier Iberia, had faced a Monday deadline to offer concessions but the deadline has now been extended to June 24 and the European Commission will make its decision by July 29, a spokesperson for the Commission said on Monday. "On 7 June 2024, the Commission decided to extend the phase II procedure in this case by a total of 10 working days," the spokesperson said. "Accordingly, the deadline for the parties to submit remedies in this case is now 24 June 2024, while the deadline for the Commission to take a decision is now 29 July 2024." IAG had in February proposed remedies which the EU competition enforcer had deemed insufficient to address worries about reduced competition in Spanish domestic routes and short-haul and long-haul routes as a result of the deal. The carrier subsequently sought to allay regulators last month saying it was in talks with Avianca, Binter, Iberojet, Ryanair, Volotea, and World2Fly to cede long-haul and short-haul routes to its rivals. It is also willing to give up more than 40% of Air Europa's 2023 flights to other airlines to boost competition. IAG is paying E400m to Spanish tourism company Globalia for the 80% of Air Europa it does not own to improve its Latin American market share, expand into Asia and allow its Madrid hub to compete with other major airports in Europe.<br/>
oneworld
Royal Jordanian Airlines is continuing to feel the impact of lost tourism resulting from the ongoing Israeli-Gaza conflict which stymied its hopes of returning to the black last year. The Oneworld carrier had been on track to record its first net profit since 2019 after the first nine months of the year before fresh conflict broke out between Israel and Hamas. “We were projecting [a profit of] JD15m ($21m) by the end of the year. Then this Gaza thing happened and unfortunately we ended up with a loss of $8m,” said Royal Jordanian CE Samer Majali, speaking to FlightGlobal on the sidelines of the IATA AGM in Dubai in June. “On a turnover of a billion its not a great loss, but psychologically it was.” ”This year we are not sure either,” he says, citing the continuing impact of the conflict and noting the situation is exacerbated by a number of western government travel advisories on states in the region. ”It really is detrimental because we rely so much on tourism, people go elsewhere.” Majali adds: “The impact is big, especially on tourism coming into Jordan. We lost huge amounts of traffic. So we are trying to compensate a little bit, but it is not easy. Entertainment, discretionary tourism is very fickle, so it’s a problem.”<br/>