Cheapest Airline Fares - Air Freight Forwarding Companies Involved In Price Fixing

United Airlines and Lufthansa, amongst the airlines being accused of price fixing are British Airways. Eleven major freight carrying airlines are being accused of trying to fix fuel price surcharges for freight forwarding flights. A worldwide investigation has been launched into alleged fuel price fixing by the air freight forwarding industry.

The airlines are being sued for fuel price fixing by a Tanzanian firm which had used KLM as a freight forwarding company to transport wood carvings to New York.

The complaint about fuel price fixing by leading airlines was filed on February 28 in US District Court for the Northeastern District of Illinois. Is seeking unspecified damages from a number of major airlines which act as freight forwarding companies, sisimizi which is based in Dar-Es-Salaam in Tanzania, the company.

The president of consulting firm Aviation Dynamics: according to Julius Maldutis,

"This is going to be a very big issue because all the airlines increased the price of their cargo business concurrently".

Lufthansa has offered to cooperate with US federal prosecutors who are investigating the claim that price-fixing is taking place in the global airline freight forwarding industry, according to recent reports.

This is most likely to be the case if it provides evidence against other air freight forwarding companies. Lufthansa could protect itself from possible criminal charges, legal experts claim that by offering to co-operate with the authorities.

The crux of their investigations rests on the claim that air freight forwarders conspired to fix fuel surcharges and other fuel related costs. They also requested information from other air freight forwarding companies. Asia and the United States raided offices of a number of the world's major airlines, authorities in Europe, at this time. The investigation into allegations of fuel price fixing became public in February this year.

A number of airlines have been asked to provide evidence and most have said that they are co-operating with these requests.