Lufthansa makes new offer on Austrian

Lufthansa has the right to pull out of the takeover if EU approval doesn’t come through by the end of July. Todd said that deadline was set by Lufthansa and the EU has until Nov. 6 to decide on approving or blocking the bid.

The European Commission said Friday it was seeking clarification from Lufthansa on its new offer. It refused to give details on what Lufthansa was now promising to do.

The EU executive says the new company could become too powerful on flights from Vienna to Frankfurt,Munich,Stuttgart,Cologne,Zurich,Geneva and Brussels. Lufthansa is Germany’s biggest airline and Austrian Airlines dominates routes out of Austria.

Lufthansa last month resolved similar EU fears that its bid for Brussels Airlines would make it the only airline running some routes out of the Belgian capital. Regulators approved the deal after Lufthansa agreed to sell off airport slots to rivals – a move that would help rivals launch competing services.

Slots are the daily periods of time that airlines get to land and take off from airports. They are valuable,changing hands for as much as 30 million pounds ($48 million) a pair at Europe’s busiest airport,London Heathrow.

Antitrust officials are separately looking into whether the Austrian government is selling Austrian Airlines at a fair price to Lufthansa. They launched an investigation in February,saying they believed that the price could be too low and may be an illegal state subsidy.

The German carrier plans to pay euro366 million ($517.16 million) to buy the Austrian government’s 41.56 percent stake in the country’s struggling carrier. The deal also sees Austria take on euro500 million of Austrian Airlines’ debt and leaves the door open to more payments in the future.

EU subsidy rules restrict government handouts for businesses.