P.M. BRIEFING : 3-Airline Europe Venture Shelved

British Airways PLC, KLM Royal Dutch Airways and Belgium’s Sabena World Airways announced today they are scrapping their plans jointly to form a regional airline with a hub in Brussels.

The three carriers in a joint news release cited “practical difficulties involved in implementing the original objectives.” A KLM spokesman acknowledged that uncertainty over obtaining European Community regulatory approval was a factor.

The three airlines had intended to develop their venture into a regional European airline, using Brussels’ Zaventem airport as the center of a hub-and-spoke route network linking 75 cities throughout Europe.

British Airways specified in its own news release that “Sabena SA has made it clear that the group requires recapitalization and reorganization of a kind which the present minority investments agreed by British Airways and KLM could not solve.”