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P.M. BRIEFING : 3-Airline Europe Venture Shelved

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<i> From Times Wire Services </i>

British Airways PLC, KLM Royal Dutch Airways and Belgium’s Sabena World Airways announced today they are scrapping their plans jointly to form a regional airline with a hub in Brussels.

The three carriers in a joint news release cited “practical difficulties involved in implementing the original objectives.” A KLM spokesman acknowledged that uncertainty over obtaining European Community regulatory approval was a factor.

The three airlines had intended to develop their venture into a regional European airline, using Brussels’ Zaventem airport as the center of a hub-and-spoke route network linking 75 cities throughout Europe.

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British Airways specified in its own news release that “Sabena SA has made it clear that the group requires recapitalization and reorganization of a kind which the present minority investments agreed by British Airways and KLM could not solve.”

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