A plan to combine the content of two leading German tour operators with Europe’s largest Internet access provider to form a new travel agency is being probed by the European Commission, Brussels, Reuters reports.
The plan calls for combining T-Online, Preussag’s TUI and travel rival C&N.
C&N is jointly owned by national air carrier Lufthansa and retailer Karstadt. T-Online, Europe’s biggest Internet service provider, is a unit of Deutsche Telekom.
The merger could result in a lack of choice for online travel consumers, the Commission said in a statement.
The Commission said that TUI and Neckerman had already offered to supply other online agents to meet the Commission’s concerns the firms would dominate the field.
TUI and Neckerman had offered to supply other online agents to allay the Commission’s concern about the new entity dominating the field. But the Commission rejected the offer because it included too many opportunities for circumvention, Reuters said.
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