FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:April 29, 1998                                                             CONTACT: Earl Foster/ACTE President, Nancy Holtzman/Executive Director, 202.546.7129   ACTE President: DOT Competitive Guidelines Just The Beginning Washington, Apr. 29 - The Association of Corporate Travel Executives described the Department of Transportation's proposed guidelines for ensuring fair airline competition as "conceptually noble" but lacking in realism as initially presented. ACTE President Earl Foster predicted that the industry is not likely to feel the impact of these guidelines for a very long time, if at all. "The primary targets of the DOT's guidelines are predatory pricing and capacity dumping," said Foster. "Yet these are but two elements in the complex equation that determines the competitive strategies of the nation's carriers today. For example, gate availability coupled with a restricted number of take-off and landing slots are two other issues that can choke competition in its infancy." Foster went on to say that he failed to see how one carrier (presumably a new entrant) would be allowed to offer seats between certain city pairs at one price, while an established carrier would be restricted in competing on the same level. "The DOT will first have to determine the fair-market value of a ticket between city pairs before being able to judge if a carrier is dumping seats or indulging in predatory pricing," said Foster. "And that's a statistic I doubt will ever see the light of day. For one thing, it would open the real issue of predatory pricing, as viewed by the majority of business travelers - the vast disparity in the cost of business travel and leisure travel." Foster added that established carriers will argue they have a much larger investment in various hubs and have spent hundreds of millions in developing different markets to risk economic incursion by upstart carriers, who may or may not be playing by the rules. The ACTE President predicted stiff resistance to these guidelines by the established carriers and a watered-down version of the guidelines as the final result. "Like Prohibition, fair-play legislation has a poor record of success. What's needed here is a new overall approach to competitive practices and aviation industry growth." For more information, Contact: Jack Riepe -- 518-946-1200