World's top airlines in cargo price-fixing lawsuit

NEW YORK, Mar 10 (Reuters) Eleven of the world's major airlines, including British Airways Plc, Deutsche Lufthansa, UAL Corp and Japan Airlines Corp., have been sued by a Tanzanian firm accusing them of conspiring to fix fuel price surcharges for cargo flights.

Three cargo carriers have also been named in the U S antitrust lawsuit, which seeks class action status.

The European Union's executive arm and the U S Justice Department have already raided a number of carriers on both sides of the Atlantic as part of a global investigation disclosed last month.

The suit was filed by Sisimizi Ltd., based in Dar-Es-Salaam, Tanzania, which said it had used KLM Cargo to ship woodcarvings to New York.

Sisimizi is seeking unspecified damages from the defendants, which also include Air France-KLM, Asiana Airlines, Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd., Singapore Airlines, Korean Airlines Co., Scandinavian airline SAS and Chile's LAN Airlines.

''This is going to be a very big issue because all the airlines increased the price of their cargo business concurrently,'' said Julius Maldutis, president of consulting firm Aviation Dynamics.

He added that a lawsuit based on the investigation could also have some chance of success.

Air cargo service providers named in the suit are Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings Inc and its Polar Air Cargo unit, Nippon Cargo Airlines Co, and Cargolux.

SAS and Singapore Airlines both declined to comment, though SAS spokesman Thomas Fredo noted that the Scandinavian airline was cooperating with the price fixing investigation. Other airlines named in the suit could not immediately be reached for comment.

The complaint was filed on February 28 in U S District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

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