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Although some of these airports now have a limited number of gates available, the vast majority of gates continue to be leased to one established airline.

airport and airline officials also told us that factors other than restrictive gate leases, such as the marketing strategies of incumbent airlines, prevented new entrants from providing service at their airports. these marketing strategies, combined with a new entrant's fear of perceived predatory conduct by the incumbent carrier and its possible lack of adequate capitalization, can deter airlines from entering dominated markets.
airline sales and marketing practices (such as frequent flyer programs, travel agent commission overrides, or corporate incentive agreements\15\) make it difficult for potential competitors to enter markets dominated by established airlines. as we have previously reported, the dominant carrier in each market uses these strategies to attract the most profitable segment of the industry--business travelers. since the strength of these programs depends largely on the incumbent airline's route networks, alliances, and hubs, new entry carriers who lack such tools are concerned about their ability to enter the market successfully. therefore, airlines in many cases have chosen not to enter, or to quickly exit, markets where they did not believe they could overcome the combined effect of these strategies.
this is particularly true given that, to attract new customers, a potential competitor must announce its schedule and fares well in advance of beginning service. thus, the incumbent is provided an opportunity to adjust its marketing strategies and match the low fares offered by the new competitors. initially, dot had inherited the civil aeronautics board's antitrust responsibilities. congress subsequently removed dot's authority for approving airline mergers, giving that responsibility to doj. doj's authority to review airline mergers and prohibit anticompetitive behavior comes from the sherman and clayton antitrust acts and the hart-scott-rodino act. doj exercised this authority in filing a complaint against the northwest-continental proposed stock acquisition. in january 2001, doj dismissed its lawsuit northwest divested all but 7 percent of its voting interest in continental.
in a case involving alleged predatory practices that is still pending, doj exercised its authority under the sherman antitrust act to prevent monopolization by filing a complaint in 1999 against american airlines. doj alleged that american violated the sherman act by attempting to monopolize service out of dallas-fort worth by increasing capacity and reducing fares ``well beyond what makes business sense,'' to drive new competitors, such as vanguard and western pacific airlines, out of the market. dot has no current authority to approve mergers, but it does have general authority under 49 usc 41712 to act against what it considers to be an unfair or deceptive practice or an unfair method of competition in air transportation. dot has used this authority to investigate several complaints of predatory practices by major air carriers against new entrants. based on these complaints, dot in april 1998 proposed guidelines that sought to define standards for air carrier conduct. however, dot did not finalize or implement those guidelines, concluding instead that it should develop standards through a case by case approach.
because dot has not yet exercised its authority, the way in which this provision will be interpreted and applied is unclear. ford aviation investment and reform act for the 21st century\17\ (air-21) required certain large and medium hub airports to submit annual competition plans to dot in order for the airport to receive new federal grants or to impose or increase the passenger facility charge. the plans are to include information on the availability of airport gates and other facilities, gate-use requirements, patterns of air service, financial constraints, and other specific items. starting in fiscal year 2001, all covered airports are required to have their plans reviewed by the federal aviation administration (faa) in order to receive airport improvement program (aip) grants and new authority to levy passenger facility charges.
\18\ dot is to review the plans and their implementation to ensure that each covered airport successfully implemented its plan. proposed legislation focuses on significant impediments to competition while we have had only limited time to study the proposed legislation, we are nevertheless pleased to provide some broad comments on the intent and a few key provisions. the intent of the aviation competition restoration act to ensure ``competitive access by commercial air carriers to major cities'' is clearly sound. the benefits of preserving and enhancing competition in the airline industry to the public are indisputable.
the absence of effective access to markets goes to the heart of failures in the functioning of competition in so many markets. under current law, dot has the authority to take action against anticompetitive practices, but it is not required to take any action. the proposed legislation would expressly require dot to act. we fully concur with the finding that public concern about the importance of air transportation .
and continued hub domination requires the department of transportation to assert its authority in analyzing proposed transactions among air carriers that affect consumers.'' moreover, as noted in the bill's findings, many of the other concerns of the public and congress regarding the airline industry--increasing flight delays and cancellations, overscheduling, and poor service--are linked to weaknesses in the functioning of competition.
we do, however, have some concerns that the proposed bill may be too prescriptive--and either may not result in the intended effect or produce unintended adverse effects. these comments relate primarily to provisions of 3 which may be specific than necessary in specifying solutions to anti-competitive effects of mergers\19\--when in both problems and solutions could vary from airport to , market to , and carrier to . fares may fall only in where competition is introduced from a -fare carrier rather than another network carrier.. ..