An Airline Executive Lands ... in Prison

A former British airline executive has become the first foreigner to receive jail time in the billion-dollar international air cargo price fixing conspiracy that the U.S. government is pursuing.

Keith Packer, formerly Commercial General Manager for British Airways World Cargo, has agreed to plead guilty, serve eight months in jail, and pay a $20,000 criminal fine for participating in a conspiracy to fix rates for international air cargo shipments, the Justice Department announced today.

According to charges filed in federal court in Washington, D.C., Packer and others conspired to fix the rates charged for international cargo from about March 2002 through mid-February 2006. The charges were passed onto U.S. consumers, who paid higher prices for the goods.

The airlines have paid large fines for the conspiracy. British Airways pleaded guilty in August 2007 and was sentenced to pay a $300 million criminal fine for its role in fixing prices for long-haul cargo. The same day, Korea Air Lines also pleaded guilty and sentenced to pay its own $300 million fine.

Other carriers, including Qantas and Japan Airlines, pleaded guilty and were ordered to pay multimillion-dollar fines - which combined to total more than $1.2 billion in penalties against the carriers. The investigation is continuing.

Two other high-level air cargo executives have pleaded guilty -- one from Qantas and one from SAS -- but Packer is the first foreign national to do so. Under federal antitrust law, he could have received a decade in prison and a fine of $1 million.

by Elizabeth Olson

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