Beltz Travel Service, Inc. v. International Air Transport Association and United Air Lines, Inc.

Beltz Travel Service, Inc., a travel agency primarily engaged in packaging vacation tours, brought this action for treble damages against three groups of defendants for their alleged violations of the antitrust laws. The first group of defendants consisted of five airlines, Pan American World Airways, Inc., Trans World Airlines, Inc., Western Air Lines, Inc., Continental Air Lines, Inc., and Air France. These five airlines, which we shall refer to as airline tour operators, are alleged to have entered the tour packaging market and to have used predatory tactics to take over and monopolize the tour packaging market in California, in violation of sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Antitrust Act, 15 U.S.C. §§ 1 and 2. The claims against these defendants were not dismissed; they remain before the trial court and thus are not before us in this appeal.

The second group of defendants was composed of two airline trade associations, the Air Transport Association of America (ATAA), an association of domestic airlines, and the International Air Transport Association (IATA), an association of international airlines. The third group of named defendants encompassed all of the individual airline…