By Rhys Jones
LONDON (Reuters) - Loss-making British Airways
Shares in the airline were up over 3 percent at 9:16 a.m. EST on Monday after the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) on Saturday tentatively allowed BA, American Airlines
British Airways said it was still in talks European regulators about the deal which would let American, BA, Iberia
"We expect the venture to be implemented in April 2011 for the start of the summer season," said Citigroup analyst Andrew Light.
"BA has not stated potential synergies that it will achieve from antitrust immunity (ATI) but we conservatively estimate 75-100 million pounds based on what Air France KLM recently stated it will achieve from its ATI from Delta -- 145 million euros for 2012," said UBS analyst Jarrod Castle.
Shares in Iberia were up 3.4 percent. Finnair shed 2.6 percent.
The carriers have been told to make four pairs of London Heathrow takeoff and landing slots available for up to 10 years to transatlantic competitors, as a concession to antitrust worries.
"It is unclear whether or not BA/AA can sell these slot pairs. This will probably be decided by the European Commission but we expect they can be sold or leased, given that BA has had to purchase many of its own slots and slot trading is commonplace at Heathrow," said Citi's Light.
"Prime-time slots pairs can fetch around 10 million pounds each."
Four daily slot pairs is better than analyst expectation of six and significantly better than the 32 that the alliance was asked to give up back in 2001, the last time BA/AA applied for immunity.
BA, Iberia and American Airlines have also offered to modify their plans to share more of their lucrative transatlantic routes in an effort to settle a competition dispute with the European Union.
The DOT previously granted immunity to oneworld's rivals Star Alliance and the SkyTeam alliance.
(Additional reporting by Clara Ferreira-Marques; editing by Hans Peters and David Cowell)
