THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT.  THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. DEBORAH MARCHINI, CNN ANCHOR: Delta Air Lines and Air France, the two lead partners in the SkyTeam global airline marketing alliance, are expected to ask for immunity from U.S. antitrust officials. Why, well Lionel Barber is standing by in London with a story you'll read in today's "Financial Times." Lionel, what's up?</s>LIONEL BARBER, "FINANCIAL TIMES": Well, I think that what's happening here is that Air France and Delta are seeking to replicate the very successful partnership between United Airlines and Lufthansa which has been going on since the mid-1990s when they got antitrust immunity. And the name of the game is really to know what each partner is doing on prices, who their customers are, and then you can go into the companies and say, for example Air France-Delta, we've got -- we can do a deal Cincinnati-Charles de Gaulle, which is Air France's hub, most efficient hub in Europe, by the way, and then we can take those passengers from Paris into the rest of the Europe and vice versa across the Atlantic. And I think if this gets going, which we may get a decision by the end of the year, I think it could be really successful for Air France and Delta leading to a lot of dollar's worth of cost savings.</s>MARCHINI: All right, thanks very much. Lionel Barber of the "Financial Times." TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Delta Air Lines and Air France Seek Antitrust Immunity