4.12 When considering the Airline Group's bid for NATS the Department satisfied themselves that there would be adequate arrangements to prevent NATS discriminating in favour of the Group's members. The Office of Fair Trading, and the European Commission's mergers task force, both accepted that Airline Group control of NATS should not be anti-competitive.
4.13 It would be difficult for NATS to discriminate in favour of particular airlines by giving them preferential treatment, for example:
■ NATS does not control the allocation of airspace between different groups of users such as airlines, the military, business aviation and recreational fliers. The Civil Aviation Authority regulates such matters.
■ Nor does NATS control the allocation of air traffic "slots". Aircraft in regulated airspace receive these from the European authority, Eurocontrol, which also applies NATS' charges on a common scale to all airlines operating in UK airspace.
■ Relevant experts, including NATS' safety regulator, have consistently told us that other users would almost certainly identify systematic operational discrimination such as taking aircraft out of holding patterns before their "turn".
■ There is an explicit prohibition on discrimination in NATS' licence, enforceable by the regulator.
4.14 The PPP has other arrangements which should obstruct other, less direct forms of discrimination, such as investing in flight-paths more heavily used by Airline Group members, for example:
■ NATS' Board now includes three government-appointed directors with rights of access and investigation within the company, and the Director General of the International Air Transport Association, which represents airlines worldwide;
■ the government, NATS' regulator and its customers must all be consulted in respect of its business plans; and
■ the Airline Group have undertaken not to discriminate; this has been given legal force in the Strategic Partnership Agreement and in NATS operating licence.