A report on Cartel, Price fixing and International Air Transport Association

IATA has been described as a cartel since, in addition to setting technical standards for airlines, IATA also organized tariff conferences that served as a forum for price fixing.

Cartel behavior includes price fixing, bid rigging, and reductions in output.

When the agreement to control price is sanctioned by a multilateral treaty or is entered by sovereign nations as opposed to individual firms, the cartel may be protected from lawsuits and criminal antitrust prosecution.

International airline tickets have their prices fixed by agreement with the IATA, a practice for which there is a specific exemption in antitrust law.

OPEC countries partially control the price of oil, and the International Air Transport Association (IATA) fixes prices for international airline tickets while the organization is excepted from antitrust law.