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Syllabus
(b) The full text of the ADA's preemption clause, and the congressional purpose to leave largely to the airlines themselves, and not at all to States, the selection and design of marketing mechanisms appropriate to the furnishing of air transportation services, impel the conclusion that § 1305(a)(1) preempts plaintiffs' Consumer Fraud Act claims. The Illinois Act is prescriptive, controlling the primary conduct of those falling within its governance; the Act, indeed, is paradigmatic of the state consumer protection laws that underpin the NAAG guidelines. Those guidelines highlight the potential for intrusive regulation of airline business practices inherent in state consumer protection legislation. The guidelines illustrate that the Illinois Act does not simply give effect to bargains offered by the airlines and accepted by customers, but serves as a means to guide and police airline marketing practices. Pp. 227-228. (c) The ADA, however, does not bar court adjudication of routine breach-of-contract claims. The preemption clause leaves room for suits alleging no violation of state-imposed obligations, but seeking recovery solely for the airline's breach of its own, self-imposed undertakings. As persuasively argued by the United States, terms and conditions airlines offer and passengers accept are privately ordered obligations and thus do not fit within the compass of state enactments and directives targeted by § 1305(a)(1). A remedy confined to a contract's terms simply holds parties to their agreements—in this instance, to business judgments an airline made public about its rates and services. Court enforcement of private agreements advances the market efficiency that the ADA was designed to promote, and comports with provisions of the Federal Aviation Act of 1958 (FAA) and related Department of Transportation (DOT) regulations that presuppose the vitality of contracts governing air carrier transportation. Such enforcement is responsive to the reality that the DOT lacks the apparatus and resources required to superintend a contract dispute resolution regime. Court adjudication of routine breach-of-contract claims, furthermore, accords due recognition to Congress' retention of the FAA's saving clause, which preserves "the remedies now existing at common law or by statute." Nor can it be maintained that plaintiffs' breach-of-contract claims are identical to, and therefore should be preempted to the same extent as, their Consumer Fraud Act claims. The basis for a contract action is the parties' agreement; to succeed under the state Act, one need not show an agreement, but must show an unfair or deceptive practice. Pp. 228-233. (d) American's argument that plaintiffs' claims must fail because they depend on state policies independent of the parties' intent assumes the answer to the very contract construction issue on which plaintiffs' claims turn: Did American, by contract, reserve the right to change the
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