British Airways has suggested that it would be willing to relinquish some of its take-off and landing slots at Heathrow, if necessary, in order to finalise its proposed alliance with American Airlines and Spanish carrier Iberia.

The British carrier is trying to appease anti-monopoly regulators in the US, who have expressed concern over the dominance in trans-Atlantic service that BA and American would enjoy.

If the merger deal is approved by US regulators, the combined airline would control 46 per cent of all trans-Atlantic flights. On one of the routes, from London Heathrow to Houston, they would run all of the scheduled flights.

In one of the two previous attempts by BA to forge an alliance with American, the deal fell apart in 2002 when BA was told by regulators that it would be required to discontinue 16 daily flights in order to be granted anti-trust immunity.

Now with airlines more keen than ever to merge or forge alliances to reduce operating costs and boost seat sales, it is anticipated that BA will be more agreeable concessions when it meets with regulators from the US Department of Justice later this week.

The upcoming talks are being met with the launch of a £3 million ad and lobbying campaign by Virgin Atlantic designed to show the public and the US government that this proposed merger would be detrimental to the interests of consumers.

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