Volotea teams up with Abra for slots from combined IAG-Air Europa

Spain's Volotea said on Tuesday it was teaming up with Abra, which owns Colombian airline Avianca and Brazil's GOL, to take over slots that IAG pledged to hand over in order to get approval for its merger with Air Europa. The deal does not involve any changes to their shareholding structure, Volotea CEO Carlos Munoz said, adding that there was no cost involved for the joint venture partners. Volotea and Abra seek to apply for all the slots that would be handed over if the merger between IAG and Air Europa is approved, Munoz told a news conference in Madrid.<br/>The partnership seeks to optimise the set of remedies with the integration of a long-haul and a short-haul network, he added. Abra CEO Adrian Neuhauser said the joint venture did not require authorisation from anti-trust authorities, since the two airline groups do not compete directly. "The joint venture structure will allow the companies to offer a unified product to clients both in Europe and the Americas, providing connectivity between their respective networks with a single ticket," they said in a joint statement. British Airways and Iberia owner IAG is paying E400m to Spanish tourism group Globalia for the 80% of Air Europa it does not already own.<br/>