BRUSSELS, Belgium - Travel planners Travelport and Worldspan won EU approval to combine their airline ticket and hotel reservation businesses on Tuesday, after antitrust officials said they did not believe the deal would hike prices.

The European Commission opened a rare in-depth investigation in May into the Travelport takeover, saying it was worried that prices would go up as the number of global distribution systems shrank from four to three.

Travelport's Galileo system and Worldport collect information on flights, car hire and hotel rooms and pass it to travel agents and online booking services.

The $1.4 billion (1.06 billion euros) takeover would leave Travelport — which also controls the Web sites Orbitz and Cheaptickets.com — positioned between two rivals that offer the same service, market leader Amadeus and smaller player Sabre.

Travelport itself is owned by private equity fund The Blackstone Group LP.

EU regulators had worried that the deal would cause problems by limiting outlets for the airlines, car rental companies and hotels that supply reservation information and cut back choice for travel agents in Belgium, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands and Britain that usually choose just one reservation system.

But they said their probe showed that airlines and others could cut off the data flow if the new company raised prices, while tough competition for travel agents to sign up meant it was unlikely that prices would climb.

"Incentive payments from global distribution systems to travel agents have increased over the last five years and switching costs do not prevent travel agents from switching," they said.