Arlington and Dulles, VA, Oct. 8, 2003 - An alliance of airline-owned industry organizations - Airline Tariff Publishing Co. (ATPCO), International Air Transport Association (IATA) and ARC (Airlines Reporting Corp.) - launched a comprehensive, global solution for financial settlement of interline travel that will save air carriers time and money. The AIA First & Final Interline Billing Service is the industry's first neutral, automated tool for settling all transactions related to travel on multiple airlines, including flights taken on carriers other than those listed on a passenger's travel documents.

The AIA First & Final Interline Billing Service leverages the strengths of three trusted airline organizations to provide a complete interline billing solution. By combining the industry-agreed, central, neutral and fully automated proration engine, the ATPCO Centralized Industry Proration Service (CIPS), with the power of the ARC COMPASS^SM data warehouse, the service provides fast, accurate settlement of interline transactions and virtually eliminates the need for time intensive negotiations between carriers. IATA, the organization that developed the international revenue accounting business standards for interline billing, enables this service to be the interline billing solution for the international airline community.

For carriers using the service, interline transactions will be settled in a maximum of two months. Prior to the launch of this service, rejected bills and resulting negotiations between airlines took up to 33 months for each transaction. By eliminating these negotiations, the AIA First & Final Interline Billing Service is projected to save the average small carrier $150,000 dollars and the average large carrier $750,000 annually.

"The AIA First & Final Interline Billing Service will notably reduce airline costs in the area of interline settlement," said ATPCO Vice President and General Manager, Value Added Business, Rolf Purzer. "Delivering this solution in conjunction with other airline owned organizations ensures that the value created will appear on the bottom line of the airlines."

John W. Kyle, general manager of ARC COMPASS, the analytical services division of ARC, said, "ARC is pleased to be part of this innovative service. This investment reflects our commitment to providing airlines with cost-effective business solutions and demonstrates the value of ARC COMPASS as the trusted, neutral data repository of airline ticketing information."

At a time when controlling costs has become more important than ever to the success of each airline, ATPCO, IATA and ARC, have introduced an important new tool for the global airline industry to streamline accounting practices and reduce costs.

"The AIA First & Final Interline Billing Service greatly simplifies the global interline settlement process," said Doug Herring, American Airlines vice president and controller. "This cooperative effort between ATPCO, IATA and ARC will result in significant cost savings for American Airlines and all of our interlining partners. I challenge all airline CFOs to adopt this cost-saving initiative by the end of the year."