Low-cost airline 1time has lodged a complaint with the Competitions Commission in a bid to break its rival kulula.com's monopoly on flights operated out of Johannesburg's Lanseria airport.

1time Commercial Manager, Desmond O'Conner, confirmed that the airline's lawyers submitted a complaint over two weeks ago. The complaint asks the Commission to investigate the exclusive agreement awarded to kulula by Lanseria Airport's management, which 1time claims is anti-competitive as it "retards" free and fair competition in the market place.

kulula began operating flights from Lanseria in March 2006 with daily flights to Cape Town. By last October the low-cost carrier had increased Cape Town flights to three daily and added new routes to Durban and Port Elizabeth.

1time is claiming that kulula is not fully uitilising its schedule out of Lanseria and that this stifles domestic air capacity growth, as 1time would be able to "fill in the gaps" if allowed to operate flights out of Lanseria, according to Mr. O'Conner

"We also want the Commission to look into kulula's pricing structure, as it appears they are charging passengers higher fees at Lanseria than O.R Tambo even though airport charges are considerably lower at Lanseria," he said.

1time is also questioning why the terms of the exclusive agreement were only revealed after it had spent over two years in talks with Lanseria's management. "We were given the run around for all that time, only to find out a few weeks ago that there is actually an exclusive agreement in place," said Mr. O'Conner.

kulula.com was not available to comment before TIR went to press, but joint Chief Executive, Gidon Novick, told Business Day last week that the exclusive agreement was awarded to kulula because it had been the only airline willing to take the risk of operating out of Lanseria and the only one prepared to make the investments needed.

"We acquired two aircraft to operate from Lanseria at a cost of R160-million, as well as spent R30-million on marketing and set-up costs. It has been a challenge to make the route profitable and it (therefore) made business sense to secure a period of exclusivity to bed down the new routes," he said.

Lanseria's Airport Manager, Gavin Sayce, said the agreement was "preferential" rather than exclusive. He added that management was open to adding more scheduled flights from Lanseria at a later stage and they would be willing to continue talks with 1time.