Sas Cleared From nfair' Accusations

British entrepreneur Richard Branson said yesterday that he was not aiming to lodge a formal complaint against Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS) which he said was flouting European competition rules.

Earlier on Tuesday, SAS rejected accusations by Branson's Virgin Express regional airline that SAS was unfairly cutting the cost of tickets between Brussels and Copenhagen, but only for flights coinciding with the cheap Virgin flights.

Branson said he was writing a letter to the European Commission at this moment pointing out the selective SAS fare cuts.

But rather than going through a formal complaint situation I hope they would just drop a line to SAS, he told newspersons at the launching of Virgin Express's Brussels-Copenhagen link.

 

We hope it will be settled in a sensible way, he added.

What SAS should accept is that in most businesses there are more than just two players but four, five, six, seven competing. There is plenty of room for people to fly on SAS flights, to fly on Virgin flights, Branson said.

But Branson warned SAS not to play dirty by undercutting prices on the Brussels-Copenhagen route.