Travel Agents' Association Charges Mexicana & Aeromexico Airlines With

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10-6-1993 Travel Agents' Association Charges Mexicana & Aeromexico Airlines With "monopolistic" Practices Carlos Navarro

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Recommended Citation Navarro, Carlos. "Travel Agents' Association Charges Mexicana & Aeromexico Airlines With "monopolistic" Practices." (1993). https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/sourcemex/2975

This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Latin America Digital Beat (LADB) at UNM Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in SourceMex by an authorized administrator of UNM Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. LADB Article Id: 057306 ISSN: 1054-8890 Travel Agents' Association Charges Mexicana & Aeromexico Airlines With "monopolistic" Practices by Carlos Navarro Category/Department: General Published: Wednesday, October 6, 1993

In late September, the Mexican Association of Travel Agencies (Asociacion Mexicana de Agencias de Viajes, AMAV) filed a complaint with the Transportation Secretariat (Secretaria de Comunicaciones y Transporte, SCT) charging Mexicana and Aeromexico airlines with engaging in "monopolistic" practices. AMAV president Augusto Bojorquez accused the two airlines of putting pressure on travel agencies to give preference to Mexicana or Aeromexico when issuing tickets or selling promotional packages. Bojorquez said the two airlines threatened the travel agencies with loss of access to the Mexicana-Aeromexico reservation system if they did not comply. Bojorquez also accused Aeromexico of attempting to force travel agencies to sign new commission contracts establishing a minimum quota on sales of its tickets. He said hotels, which participate in tour packages arranged by the travel agencies, have also been instructed to offer their best rates or face loss of access to the Mexicana-Aeromexico reservation system. "The so-called strategic alliance between Aeromexico and Mexicana is revealing monopolistic tendencies," said Bojorquez. He said this practice was preventing the smaller Mexican airlines from competing fairly against the two large air carriers. In fact, the airline Servicios Aereos Rutas del Oriente (SARO) took out a full page advertisement in La Jornada newspaper on Sep. 24 asking President Carlos Salinas de Gortari to take measures which would prevent Aeromexico and Mexicana from gaining a monopoly over Mexico's domestic airline market. The advertisement charged that because of pressure from the two large airlines, the government's Civil Aviation Authority (Direccion General de Aviacion Civil, DGAC) was barring SARO from flying charters on routes that had been previously approved. Three of these routes connect Mexico City with the Tamaulipas cities of Reynosa, Matamoros and Tampico. A fourth route links Monterrey and Guadalajara. SARO was also among a handful of small airlines whose operations were temporarily suspended because of alleged violations of Mexican civil aviation laws (see SourceMex, 08/25/93). In the advertisement, however, SARO pointed out that a government inspection had found its aircraft, equipment, and other operations in full compliance with government regulations. Meantime, Celso Dominguez, president of the Airline Pilots Union (Asociacion Sindical de Pilotos Aviadores, ASPA) joined the AMAV in calling for the government to investigate the "monopolistic" practices of Mexicana and Aeromexico. Dominguez told La Jornada newspaper that the lack of government regulation, especially for fares, has permitted the two giant airlines to dominate the market. (Sources: La Jornada, 09/23/93, 09/24/93; El Financiero International, 09/27/93)

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