Spanish airline Iberia will start joint accounts with British Airways on routes between Spain and Britain from next winter, Chairman Fernando Conte told a shareholders' meeting on Thursday.
"We're about to conclude our negotiations on plans for the winter season and they will include joint accounts on routes between the United Kingdom and Spain," Conte said.
BA owns some nine percent of Iberia and the airlines are both part of the oneworld alliance. They already operate code-sharing flights on routes between Britain and Spain.
Iberia CEO Angel Mullor said in January the firm was considering joint accounts but the plans did not include an exchange of stakes.
The two are already coordinating operations with the aim of gradually combining their businesses from the bottom up. They have repeatedly ruled out an Air France-KLM style merger from the top down.
Mullor said in January that Iberia wanted to tighten its alliance with BA as far as current laws allow, and might sign up for still closer ties if the rules change.
He said Iberia was working to identify areas where synergies between the two airlines and advantages from the alliance could be extended.
At the end of last year, the two companies won six-year approval from the European Commission to operate an alliance in the European Union.
They asked in mid-2002 for antitrust exemption so they could share profits, agree on prices, combine sales forces and ground staff and coordinate connecting flights, all on a route-by-route basis.
