CP European competition authorities aware of competition restriction concerns in rail retailing

10 novembre 2011

GEBTA strongly supports a level playing field between railway undertakings’ own sales channels and third party ticket vendors in the sale of rail products and services.

It welcomes the Commission’s statement that is will follow developments in the rail transport industry in terms of railway undertakings abusing their dominant position by making access to their rail inventory more difficult for third party ticket vendors than for their own sales channels

In its answer to a question raised by a Member of the European Parliament, the European Commissioner in charge of Competition, Mr. Almunia, has acknowledged concerns expressed by the travel agents Community about railway companies in various European markets not allowing travel agents access to all their prices and services –often claiming difficulties in implementing systems and / or new sales processes – thereby ‘handicapping’ third-party ticket vendors in favour of their own channels with the sole aim of consolidating their dominant position.

The Commission makes reference to the decision¹ of the French Competition Authority of 5 February 2009, fining the French rail company, SNCF, for favouring its own distribution channel over other third-party ticket vendors.

The French competition authorities concluded that the railway company was abusing its dominant position in France by establishing barriers of entry to the market of train ticket sales and imposing discriminatory conditions and costs on third party ticket vendors.

This decision has been very important for online travel agents, who were unable to access the same fares and functionalities offered by SNCF to its own online travel agent Voyages-SNCF.

GEBTA is seeking a level-playing field between railway company’s own sales channels and third party ticket vendors. Said Chairman of GEBTA Europe, Michel Durrieu: “Rail transport is becoming increasingly important for our corporate customers. There is a win-win situation for both railway companies and ticket vendors to tap into this expanding market and make rail more accessible and attractive to the travelling public.”

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¹ Decision of the French Competition Authority:

SNCF and Expedia have been condemned in France to pay fines of €5 million and €500.000 respectively, for an agreement between undertakings and abuses of dominant position favouring Voyages-SNCF to the detriment of competitor on-line travel agencies.

SNCF and Expedia made an antitrust agreement to make their joint venture Voyages-SNCF benefit from advantages linked to sharing the commercial website of SNCF, notably benefiting from the web traffic coming from the purchase of train tickets, sending common newsletters, sharing unequally the advertisement revenues and benefiting from the trademark mentioning “SNCF”.

SNCF abused of its dominant position by (i) imposing high and discriminatory costs to have access to its fares; (ii) paying commissions in a discriminatory manner; and (iii) depriving competitors from access to certain functionalities implying the impossibility of distributing certain offers and by imposing discriminatory conditions to present offers.