The creation of a joint venture between France's Axa and equity firm Permira will concentrate their proposed acquisition of Opodo as well as their respective existing on line travel agency subsidiaries, GO Voyages and eDreams has been approved by the European Commission. The deal will create one of Europe's largest company in the online travel agency sector.

AXA PE, a private equity firm that belongs to the AXA Group, currently controls GO Voyages. Permira, also a private equity firm, controls eDreams. Together they will acquire Opodo and will create a joint venture to which they will contribute Go Voyages and eDreams. Opodo is currently owned by the Spanish travel technology provider Amadeus.

The Commission's examination, after the deal was notified for clearance to the Commission on 19 April and its publication in the Official Journal, focused on the on line distribution of leisure flights, where the joint venture will be the strongest especially in the French and Italian markets. The examination concluded that there would remain sufficient competition. The Commission's investigation showed that on line travel agencies (OTA) and airline websites compete with each other for the sale of leisure flights on the Internet. The joint venture will face competition from airlines such as Air France, Alitalia, Windjet, easyJet and Ryanair and from other OTAs like Expedia and Bravofly/Volagratis. On the basis of these findings, the Commission concluded that the transaction does not raise competition concerns.