Eleven of the world's major airlines, including United Airlines, British Airways, Lufthansa and Japan Airlines, have been sued by a Tanzanian firm accusing them of conspiring to fix fuel price surcharges for cargo flights.

Three cargo carriers have also been named in the US antitrust lawsuit, which seeks class action status.

The European Union's executive arm and the US Justice Department have already raided a number of carriers on both sides of the Atlantic as part of a global investigation disclosed last month.

The suit was filed by Sisimizi, based in Dar-Es-Salaam, Tanzania, which said it had used KLM Cargo to ship woodcarvings to New York.

Sisimizi is seeking unspecified damages from the defendants, which also include Air France-KLM, Asiana Airlines, Cathay Pacific Airways, Singapore Airlines, Korean Air, Scandinavian airline SAS and Chile's LAN Airlines.

"This is going to be a very big issue because all the airlines increased the price of their cargo business concurrently," said Julius Maldutis, president of consulting firm Aviation Dynamics.

He added that a lawsuit based on the investigation could also have some chance of success.

Air cargo service providers named in the suit are Atlas Air Worldwide and its Polar Air Cargo unit, Nippon Cargo Airlines and Cargolux.

SAS and Singapore Airlines both declined to comment, though SAS spokesman Thomas Fredo noted that the Scandinavian airline was cooperating with the price fixing investigation.

The complaint was filed on February 28 in US District Court for the Northeastern District of Illinois.