BRUSSELS (AP) – British Airways, American Airlines and Iberia have offered to give away takeoff and landing slots at London and New York airports to soothe European Union antitrust worries, EU regulators said.

The European Commission said it would ask other airlines whether freeing up slots at London Heathrow, London Gatwick and New York's John F. Kennnedy airports would be enough to foster greater competition. Rivals would look to start new routes from those airports to New York, Boston, Dallas and Miami.

If rivals are supportive, regulators said they would move to make the three airlines' offer legally binding and drop an antitrust case that could have racked up millions of euros (dollars) in fines.

The three airlines currently coordinate how they sell and operate flights between the 27-nation EU and the United States. They now want to expand their oneworld alliance to jointly manage schedules, capacity and pricing on flights from Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Norway and Switzerland as well.

That triggered antitrust investigations in the EU and the US as regulators worried that combining the services into new territories would limit competition and hike fares on lucrative trans-Atlantic routes.

BA, American and Iberia claim that the planned new alliance would reduce fares and give passengers more convenient connections and better access to some 500 destinations.

But the EU has long been suspicious about how airline alliances such as oneworld and Star Alliance affect prices for flying between Europe and the United States. It is still investigating the Star Alliance run by Lufthansa, Continental, United and Air Canada as well as SkyTeam, which combines Air France/KLM and Delta/Northwest.