Three major airlines were accused Monday of predatory pricing by a tiny Des Moines-based carrier that began offering two flights daily to New York and Los Angeles only five weeks ago.
In papers filed with the U.S. Department of Transportation and the Iowa attorney general, AccessAir charged that Northwest Airlines, Trans World Airlines and Delta Air Lines had unfairly undercut AccessAir’s fares to Los Angeles from Des Moines and Moline.
“I have no problem with them matching us. But when they start underpricing, it becomes predatory and is out of hand,” said Roger Ferguson, AccessAir’s chairman and chief executive officer, in a telephone interview.
It’s the third time that Northwest has been accused of predatory pricing in less than two years.
Reno Airlines, which was acquired in December by American Airlines as the Nevada carrier was hemorrhaging red ink, sued Northwest in 1997, charging that Reno had been driven out of the Minneapolis market by the Eagan, Minn.-based carrier.
Last year, Kiwi International Airlines, which began offering service between Detroit and Minneapolis during the Northwest pilots’ strike, accused Northwest of slashing prices and driving it out of Detroit.
On Monday, Northwest denied it was undercutting AccessAir’s ticket prices.
“We never had a fare in the market less restrictive than AccessAir,” said Marta Laughlin, a spokeswoman for Northwest.
Jim Brown, a spokesman for St. Louis-based TWA, said the airline had not received any notice of the complaint.
But he said: “Our goal is to compete fairly and vigorously.”
The charges come at a critical time for the Transportation Department, which is considering clamping down on predatory practices by the nation’s large airlines.
The department has warned it will get tough on big airlines that use predatory practices–slashing ticket prices or adding extra flights to flood the market with cheap seats–to drive low-cost airlines out of markets or out of business.
