US competition authorities yesterday approved a code-sharing venture between British Airways and American Airlines in a breakthrough for the carriers' long-standing efforts to deepen their alliance.

Each carrier will be able to sell seats on many of the other's services under its own flight code, expanding both airlines' networks.

The approval excludes non-stop US-London flights. American will be able to code-share on BA flights from London to destinations ranging from Germany, France and Italy to Nigeria, Qatar, Bahrain and Singapore. BA will be able to put its code on American flights from 20 US gateway cities to scores of destinations from Abilene to Wichita.

The US Department for Transportation said the code-sharing would not impair competition and would produce benefits for passengers, shippers and communities.

It approved the deal despite objections filed by several rivals to BA and American led by Delta Air Lines, Continental Airlines, Northwest Airlines, United Airlines and BMI British Midland.

The deal will boost BA and American's attempts to expand their co-operation within the Oneworld global airline alliance.

It remains a much more modest deal, however, than the joint venture with antitrust immunity that they have twice had refused by the US authorities. The DoT underlined that the code-sharing deal would not allow the two carriers to collude on setting prices and planning capacity and networks. - (Financial Times Service)