This appeal raises the question whether a monopolist publisher of flight schedules not itself an air carrier has some duty under the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Act not to discriminate unjustifiably between certificated air carriers and commuter airlines so as to place the latter at a significant competitive disadvantage. Petitioner, Official Airline Guides, Inc., which took over publication of the Official Airline Guide from The Reuben H. Donnelley Corp. (Donnelley) in 1979, challenges an FTC order, In re The Reuben H. Donnelley Corp., [1980] 3 Trade Reg.Rep. (CCH) ¶ 21,650. The order requires Donnelley to publish in the North American edition of its guide, known as the “OAG,” connecting flight listings for commuter airlines in the same manner as it publishes connecting flight listings for certificated airlines, and to refrain from arbitrarily discriminating against any air carrier or class of carriers in publishing connecting flight listings. The guide is a semimonthly publication that provides detailed information on flight schedules and fares in North America. We find the petitioner’s three defenses-that (1) the FTC lacks jurisdiction under the Act to regulate petitioner in this case, (2) there is a lack of substantial evidence in the record to support the Commission’s findings, and (3) the petitioner’s voluntary compliance prior to conclusion of the FTC proceedings prevents a cease and desist order-all to be unavailing. At the same time we find for the petitioner on the merits of the underlying legal question and we do not reach petitioner’s First Amendment defense to the order.
Since 1969 the North American edition of the Official Airline Guide (OAG), the “bible” of the industry, has been the only publication distributed in the United States that combines the North American passenger flight schedules of all scheduled domes *922 tic air carriers. It is the “primary market tool of . virtually every [air] carrier . . .in the United States,” and is the standard reference for airline ticket offices, travel agents, businesses, and the public generally, although it has apparently been displaced to some extent by computerized scheduling.
At the time the Commission’s complaint was issued in this proceeding, the (OAG) contained four categories of flight schedules: (1) direct flights of certificated carriers, that is, flights which do not involve a change of aircraft between two cities; (2) connecting flights of certificated carriers, that is, flights involving the use of one direct flight in conjunction with another to provide transportation between two cities; (3) direct flights of intrastate air carriers; and (4) direct flights of commuter air carriers. Under Donnelley’s publication policy a user of the (OAG) was not readily apprised of connecting flights of commuter air carriers. For example, there are no direct flights between Los Angeles and Rutland, Vermont, and the (OAG) listed only those connections involving certificated carriers. A user of the (OAG), therefore, might be directed to Rutland from Los Angeles by way of Boston, because all three cities are or have been served by direct flights of certificated carriers. A user of the guide, unless he “constructed a connection,” would not be informed of commuter connections from intermediate cities, such as New York or Hartford, which may not serve Rutland by direct flights of certificated carriers, even though these cities may be more convenient to the Los Angeles traveler than a flight through Boston. “Constructing a connection” obviously requires looking for direct flights serving points intermediate to the two cities between which the traveler is flying. Because constructing a connection is difficult and time-consuming, it is important to have connecting flights listed in the OAG. Certificated carriers paid Donnelley in 1975 alone hundreds of thousands of dollars in order to have their flights listed.
As a result of OAG’s failure to list the connecting flight schedules of commuter airlines, the Commission found that the latter were handicapped in competing with certificated carriers in markets that were served by both, which. included some 432 “city pairs” as of April 1975, a “city pair” being two cities between which there is scheduled airline service. Commuter airlines sought as early as 1969 to have Donnelley publish commuter connections in the OAG. At one time, Donnelley representatives did sit down with the certificated carriers’ trade association, the Air Traffic Conference, to discuss the commuter connection problem, but evidently the certificated carriers were not interested in the increase in competition, and the subject was dropped. It may be noted parenthetically that the administrative law judge’s finding that there was a conspiracy between the certificated air carriers and Donnelley was overturned by the full Commission.
In 1975 the FTC staff undertook an investigation into Donnelley’s publication policies and Donnelley then expressed a willingness to modify its practices without, however, agreeing to do so in a binding or enforceable agreement. On April 13, 1976, the Commission issued its complaint, charging that Donnelley had violated section 5 of the FTC Act, 1 first, by refusing to publish the connecting schedules of commuter air carriers; second, by failing to merge the direct flight schedules of commuter air carriers that it did publish with similar sched *923 ules of certificated carriers; and third, by conspiring with others in restraint of trade. The administrative law judge found against Donnelley on all counts, but the full Commission reversed him as to the second and third counts, holding that Donnelley had sufficient business justification for not merging into a single listing the schedules of commuter air carriers and certificated carriers, and that the record did not support a finding of any conspiracy. The Commission did, however, affirm the administrative law judge in finding a section 5 violation in Donnelley’s arbitrary refusal to publish the connecting flight schedules of commuter air carriers. The Commission’s order directed Donnelley to “cease and desist from failing to publish connecting flight listings for commuter air carriers pursuant to whatever guidelines govern the publication of connecting flight listings for certificated carriers” and petitioner filed the pending petition for review, as to which we have jurisdiction under section 5(c) and (d) of the FTC Act, 15 U.S.C. § 45(c)-(d).
1. Jurisdiction of the FTC
Petitioner’s first argument is that the Commission lacks jurisdiction over it in this case. 2 Section 5(a)(2) empowers the Commission “to prevent . . . corporations, except ... air carriers . subject to the Federal Aviation Act of 1958, from using unfair methods of competition . . . and unfair or deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce.” 15 U.S.C. § 45(a)(2). 3
Donnelley is not subject to the Federal Aviation Act and, therefore Donnelley is really arguing that the FTC cannot even regulate non-carrier corporations when the FTC’s purpose is to prevent unfair competition in the airline industry. But this argument confuses the broad mandate given to the Commission to enforce section 5 with the narrow exemption from the Commission’s jurisdiction that is granted to air carriers subject to CAB jurisdiction. The analogous surface common carrier exemption in the FTC Act, as the Seventh Circuit has held, “is in terms of status as a common carrier subject to the Interstate Commerce Act, not activities subject to regulation under that Act.”
FTC v. Miller,
The only case that petitioner really has to go on is
Fruit Growers’ Express Inc. v. FTC,
II. Substantial Evidence
Petitioner argues that the Commission did not properly find that Donnelley arbitrarily injured competition among air carriers. However, substantial evidence supports the Commission’s findings of significant competition between certificated and commuter carriers, and of injury to that competition, as well as the finding that Donnelley “arbitrarily” refused to publish the connecting flight schedules of commuter carriers.
Petitioner argues that competition between the certificated and commuter carriers is
de minimis
inasmuch as the approximately one million passengers carried by commuters in 1974 constituted but a small fraction of the total of some 190 million carried by certificated carriers. But in eighty-two city pairs commuter carriers served almost a million passengers in 1973 and 900,000 passengers in 1974, while certificated carriers served about four million persons in those markets. Thus tens of millions of dollars of revenues are involved in the carrying of passengers by commuter and certificated carriers in the city pairs in which they compete, and this is clearly not “insignificant or insubstantial.”
See United States v. Consolidated Laundries Corp.,
Petitioner further claims that the commuter carriers were not injured by its actions and cites the fact that 70% of commuter air traffic in 1971 was comprised of connecting passengers. But this fact merely shows the extent to which commuter carriers depend on connecting traffic and tells us nothing about the number of passengers who never learned of the commuters’ unpublished connecting schedules. The Commission’s finding that there is little chance that the availability of unpublished connecting flights will be known was properly predicated upon the testimony of industry witnesses, the statements of travel agents and others, and inferences drawn from the Commission’s awareness of the OAG’s role in the air travel industry and from the reported increases in commuter traffic that did occur after Donnelley began publishing the connecting flight schedules of commuter airlines.
Moreover, Donnelley did not offer the Commission any explanation for its refusal to list commuter connecting flights. While Donnelley now says that it considered the issue to be factually moot, and that its reasons for not publishing the commuter connecting flight schedules prior to 1976 were essentially the same as its reasons for not merging the direct flight schedule listings of commuter and certificated carriers (as to which the Commission, with one dissent, found business justification), neither explanation has merit. There is no mootness defense.
See SCM Corp. v. FTC,
Donnelley, however, contends that the Commission itself is arbitrary. Donnelley argues that under the Commission’s standard if a monopoly were to act in its own economic self-interest the Commission would seize upon that fact and declare such behavior to be monopolization in violation of section 2 of the Sherman Act, while if it could not show any economic self-interest the Commission would find it to be acting “arbitrarily.” But this argument ignores
*925
the fact that section 2 of the Sherman Act does not forbid a monopolist from ever acting in its own self-interest.
See Berkey Photo, Inc. v. Eastman Kodak Co.,
III. Legal Duty of a Monopolist vis-a-vis its Customers
We turn then to the crucial issue in the case, whether Donnelley as a monopolist had some duty under section 5 of the FTC Act not to discriminate unjustifiably between the competing classes of carriers so as to place one class at a significant competitive disadvantage. In other words, does the FTC Act authorize the Commission to find unlawful the type of challenged activity engaged in by petitioner? The Commission itself recognized that “[t]he question we are presented with is outside the mainstream of law concerning monopolies and monopolization.” [1980] 3 Trade Reg.Rep. (CCH) ¶ 21,650, at 21,816.
On the one hand, the petitioner refers us to the principle expressed in
United States v. Colgate & Co.,
[i]n the absence of any purpose to create or maintain a monopoly, the [Sherman Act] does not restrict the long recognized right of trader or manufacturer engaged in an entirely private business, freely to exercise his own independent discretion as to parties with whom he will deal.
The Commission did not find in the present case “any purpose to create or maintain a monopoly,” but went on to say that “the philosophy of Colgate must give way to a limited extent where the business judgment is exercised by a monopolist in an arbitrary way.” The Commission conceded that its result “may be inconsistent to some extent with the theory of the Colgate doctrine.” [1980] 3 Trade Reg.Rep. (CCH) ¶ 21,650, at 21,818 n. 37.
The Commission’s brief, however, refers us to two lines of cases with which it claims its decision is consistent. The first line recognizes limitations that may be placed upon a monopolist’s rights to affect competition. Thus, in
Lorain Journal Co. v. United States,
The second line of cases relied upon in the Commission’s brief recognizes the duty that the joint owners of a scarce resource have to make the resource available to all potential users on nondiscriminatory terms. Thus in
Associated Press v. United States,
The closest case that the Commission could cite is
Grand Caillou Packing Co.,
The Fifth Circuit, in reviewing
LaPeyre,
held that it need not decide whether the record supported the majority’s finding of discriminatory intent because it was clear that the conduct violated section 5 by unjustly discriminating between classes of users.
*927
Conceding in effect that there is no case precisely in point, the Commission suggested in oral argument that it was but a “small step” that we would be taking were we to uphold their decision. Of course we are reminded by the line of cases including
FTC v. Cement Institute,
But we think enforcement of the FTC’s order here would give the FTC too much power to substitute its own business judgment for that of the monopolist in any decision that arguably affects competition in another industry. Such a decision would permit the FTC to delve into, as the Commission itself put the extreme case, “social, political, or personal reasons” for a monopolist’s refusal to deal.
See id.
Professors Areeda and Turner give examples of a monopolist theater which refuses to admit men with long hair or a monopolist newspaper which refuses to publish advertising from cigarette manufacturers. 3 P. Areeda & D. Turner,
supra,
at 270-71. The Commission says that neither of these examples would trigger antitrust scrutiny because there is no competition among persons who attend movies, and refusing to publish advertisements for all cigarette companies would not place any of them at a disadvantage
vis-avis
a competitor.
See
[1980]
We do not think that the
Colgate
doctrine is as dead as the Commission would have it. Only recently we said as much in
Oreck Corp. v. Whirlpool Corp.,
IV. Mootness of Case
If the Commission were correct, however, that failure of petitioner to publish commuter airlines connecting flight schedules amounted to an antitrust violation, the fact that petitioner had already begun to publish such information before the conclusion of the proceedings would not make the cease and desist order invalid. In such a situation, as we have held, the Commission has “discretion” to find that an order is warranted because of the possibility of unlawful recurrence of the activity.
SCM Corp. v. FTC (I),
As previously stated, we need not reach petitioner’s First Amendment claim.
Petition to review granted; Commission order reversed for reasons stated above.
Notes
. Section 5 of the FTC Act, 15 U.S.C. § 45, provides in pertinent part:
(a)(1) Unfair methods of competition in or affecting commerce, and unfair or deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce, are declared unlawful.
(2) The Commission is empowered and directed to prevent persons, partnerships, or corporations, except banks, savings and loan institutions described in section 57a(f)(3) of this title, common carriers subject to the Acts to regulate commerce, air carriers and foreign air carriers subject to the Federal Aviation Act of 1958, and persons, partnerships, or corporations insofar as they are subject to the Packers and Stockyards Act, 1921, as amended, except as provided in section 406(b) of said Act, from using unfair methods of competition in or affecting commerce.
. In an earlier case in the Northern District of Illinois, Donnelley prevailed in this argument.
Reuben H. Donnelley Corp. v. FTC,
[1977] 2 Trade Cas. (CCH) ' 61,721 (N.D.Ill.1977). The judgment in that case was later vacated for failure to exhaust administrative remedies, [1977] 2 Trade Cas. (CCH) ' 61,783 (N.D.Ill. 1977), and following cross appeals from the vacatur the court of appeals held that venue in the Northern District of Illinois was improper,
. See note 1 supra.
.
Atlantic Refining Co. v. FTC,
