GAZETTE NOTICE NO. 12124

PURSUANT to the provisions of section 25 of the Competition Act, Act, 2010 ("the Act"), the Competition Authority of Kenya (CAK) notifies the public that the American Airlines Group Inc. (American Airlines) and Qatar Airways Company Q.C.S.0 (Qatar Airways) have made an application for exemption on certain sections of the Act with regards to potential Restrictive Trade Practices for a period of ten (10) years, relating to a passenger Strategic Alliance which would entail a metal-neutral, revenue—sharing agreement between the parties covering travel between the US and various countries in the Middle East, within Africa (with Kenya within the geographic scope) and the Indian Sub-continent. In particular, American Airlines and Qatar Airways are seeking to be exempted with respect to entering into a Strategic Alliance which would involve co-ordination on a number of aspects of the services offered with respect to the following: (a) Schsclifle co-ordination and co-ordination for new capacity — the ,arties shall use commercially reasonable efforts to co- ordinate their schedules and to mutually explore all opportunities to benefit from new capacity growth of passengers of the scheduled passenger services operated by eacti Party or its Affiliates; (b) Code sharing-the parties shall engage in code sharing of various flights in order to minimize connecting passenger waiting time and to maximize passenger convenience and service; (c) Revenue Management- the parties shall jointly co-ordinate the development of revenue plans for the Joint Services. Specifically, they shall discuss and reach agreements on various areas in order to achieve cost synergies such as information technology systems; aircraft, engine and ground service equipment services; insurance including aviation insurance; aircraft maintenance and inventories; purchasing; frequent flyer programs; airport facilities; sales; promotions, marketing and reservations including ticket office consolidation; airport lounges, terminal location and ground services and jet fuel; (d) Sales—the parties shall align and coordinate planning and implementation of sales to actively promote the Joint Services on a metal neutral basis to provide customers with greater discounted fares, and a broader range of benefits; (e) Alignment of Pricing—the parties shall satisfy market demand through joint pricing. Further, the parties will establish initial General Pricing Guidelines and Unpublished/Dealt Pricing Guidelines Pricing Guidelines that take into account the composition, scope and dealing rationale of each party's existing business; (f) Inventory management—the parties shall co-ordinate the inventory management of the Joint Services greater integration of yield management systems through the sharing of "bid prices "or other demand forecast data relevant to calculating inventory availability for the Joint Services. They shall also exchange historic and forward-looking data which include passenger and revenue data by cabin relating to each party's traffic demand regarding each of the Joint Services; Discounts and Marketing— the parties shall seek to agree to a clear dealing strategy on areas not limited to private fares, agency commissions, rebates, discounts, share performance and agency net fares. Further, they shall coordinate planning and implementation of marketing activities through marketing each other in their respective flights (both codeshare and prime) and by facilitating selling opportunities for the other on their extended network (outside the Strategic Alliance); and Loyalty—Frequent Flyer Programmes — the parties shall engage in the co-ordination of frequent flyer programmes through promoting each other to frequent flyers by offering various promotions. The above conducts, if not exempted, will qualify as contraventions under the Act, hence the application for exemption. All intet6sted parties are required to submit any written representations, if any, with regard to this application within thirty (30) days of the ptblication of this notice. s Submissions may be made through the email address info@cak.go.ke or the CAK portal https://competition.cak.go.ke:444 under submissions. Dated the 20th September, 2022. WANG'OMBE KARIUKI, MR/3851428 Director-General.