Freddie Laker failed to stop an airline settlement.

A judge in London approved a $48-million out-of-court deal that 10 leading airlines had offered to creditors of Laker Airways. Sir Freddie Laker, the man who pioneered cut-rate international air travel, had tried to block the settlement of his $1-billion antitrust suit, in which he charged that the airlines conspired to drive him out of business in 1982. Laker, who can appeal, called the settlement “pitifully inadequate.”