The Competition Authority did not exercise moderation when ruling on the case of Air Antilles and Air Caraibes. She believes that the two airlines, as well as the company Aérogestion, implemented anti-competitive practices for inter-island services in the Caribbean between 2015 and 2019. Describing these practices as “particularly serious”, it imposes a fine of 14.57 million euros on them.
“There is no interruption, but an acceleration” (Christine Ourmières and Marc Rochet, Air Caraibes-French Bee)
Non-aggression agreement
In its opinion, the administrative authority establishes that Air Caraibes and Air Antilles – commercial name of the Inter-Regional Express Airline (Cairo) – have concluded a “ non-aggression agreement », which gave rise to the establishment of four agreements during the period. These, again according to the authority, concerned the price of tickets, as well as the level of offer for the connections between Pointe-à-Pitre and Fort-de-France, and between each of these two cities and Saint Martin, Saint Lucia and Santo Domingo.
The commercial court authorizes the takeover of Air Antilles but not Air Guyane
Thus, between February and June 2015, then between September and December 2016, Air Antilles and Air Caraibes, “with the support of Aérogestion”have agreed on the pricing conditions for plane tickets. The third agreement reached a new milestone with the fixing of prices in addition to pricing conditions between April 2017 and December 2019, with the ban on being “lower price”.
“These discussions on prices led, from the 2017-2018 winter season, to the establishment of common price scales leading to a very significant increase in prices,” underlines the Competition Authority.
A step further
At the same time, Air Caraibes and Air Antilles have implemented “an agreement to reduce supply and share time slots” between June 2017 and October 2019. This allowed them to set up, from November 2017, a flight program “materializing a drop in supply in the number of seats offered of more than 10% and a distribution of the most profitable time slots”.
“Serious practices on the part of two operators in a duopoly situation on an island territory with a captive customer base also subject to the phenomenon of the high cost of living,” criticized the Competition Authority.
This judged that the duopolistic situation of the two companies in a territory where air transport proves essential for mobility further increased the blame. She thus notes “significant repercussions on the travel of local customers […] faced with a cost of living significantly higher than in mainland France, [qui] has no really viable alternative to flying”.
These aggravating circumstances also relate to the fact that “the companies in question had perfect knowledge of the infringing nature of their behavior”with “a high degree of sophistication in concealing exchanges”. The Competition Authority cites as proof the use of pseudonyms and code names, as well as two intermediaries including Miles Plus. The latter is a consulting company, better known as Aérogestion, founded and managed by Marc Rochet, who was also the head of Air Caraibes at the material time.
Air Caraibes and French bee stay the course despite a complex summer
Several million euros in fines
Air Caraibes and Aerogestion requested a settlement procedure, which means that they do not dispute the facts. The Competition Authority therefore sanctioned each of them with a fine. Air Caraibes, and jointly its parent companies, the Dubreuil and Dubreuil Aéro groups, will have to pay 13 million euros, while Aérogestion will have to pay 70,000 euros.
“Air Caraibes takes note of the decision of the Competition Authority published today and which relates to old facts concerning only the West Indian regional network. We are analyzing this decision with our advisors in order to consider possible follow-ups,” the company declared to La Tribune, thus retaining the possibility of filing an appeal. Also contacted, Marc Rochet did not wish to comment.
The contributory capacity of Cairo, in compulsory liquidation, and its parent company Guyane Aéroinvest, being judged to be zero, the authority decided to postpone the sanction of 1.5 million euros on their parent company K Finance.
