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OST Docket Filings for March 22, 1999 |
Last Updated 03/24/99 10:26 AM
Objection of Michigan DOT to EAS Order Added 3/23
NPRM Airport Fees Comments by Aer Turas, Air2000, IACA & Qantas
Added 3/23
Applications and Renewals:
Amerijet - Turks & Caicos Renewal | Emery - Dayton-Monterrey | IATA
Answers and Replies:
Continental - Reply of Continental US-Mexico | Great Lakes Aviation - Objection of Michigan DOT | Northwest - Reply of Northwest US-Mexico
NPRM: Fees and Charges for Special Services
Notices of Action Taken:
Notices and Orders:
Fairmont/Norfolk/Yankton - Great Lakes | IATA | LOT - O'Hare Slots
| OST-97-2183 | March 22, 1999 | Application for Renewal of an
Exemption |
US-Turks and Caicos All-Cargo |
| Service List |
Amerijet has not yet instituted scheduled air service in the market. However, it intends to seek the appropriate approval from the Department of Transport in London and the Department of Civil Aviation in the Turks and Caicos as soon as market conditions warrant. Amerijet intends to operate one or two round-trip flights each week, increasing as market conditions dictate, using a Boeing 727-200 aircraft presently in Amerijet's fleet or other aircraft Amerijet has or may acquire in the future.
Counsel: Seeger Potter, John Richardson, 202-496-1234
| OST-99-5154 | March 22, 1999 | Reply of Continental
Airlines |
US-Mexico |
Counsel: Continental and Crowell Moring, Bruce Keiner, 202-624-2500
Emery Worldwide Airlines, Inc.
| OST-99-5415 | March 22, 1999 | Application for an Exemption |
Dayton-Monterrey |
| Service List |
Emery Air plans to operate five weekly scheduled service flights between Dayton and Monterrey starting April 13, 1999. Emery Air will begin its Dayton-Monterrey service using its own DC-8 aircraft and crews.
Counsel: Crowell Moring, Lorraine Halloway, 202-624-2500
Fairmont, Minnesota / Norfolk, Nebraska / Yankton, South Dakota
| Order 99-3-11 OST-98-3843 OST-98-3704 OST-98-3703 |
Issued March 16, 1999 Served March 19, 1999 |
Order Extending Service
Obligation |
Essential Air Service - Great Lakes Aviation |
We require Great Lakes Aviation, Ltd., d/b/a United Express, to maintain essential air service at Fairmont, Minnesota, Norfolk, Nebraska, and Yankton, South Dakota, as set forth in Appendix C of Order 99-1-15, for an additional 30-day period through April 23, 1999 or until a carrier capable of providing reliable replacement service actually begins service, whichever is firsts
By: John Coleman
| OST-99-5175 | March 2, 1999 | Objection of Michigan
Department of Transportation, Bureau of Aeronautics |
Ninety Day Notice to Terminate Essential Air Service at Iron Mountain/Kingsford, Michigan |
By: William E. Gehman, Deputy Director, 517.335.9283
Northwest Airlines, Inc.
| OST-98-4832 OST-99-6164 (This Docket # Is Probably Supposed to Read 'OST-99-5164') |
March 22, 1999 | Reply of Northwest
Airlines |
US-Mexico |
In sharp Contrast to United, which already has U.S.-Mexico code-share operations with Mexicana, Northwest's codeshare services with Continental will introduce a new competitive alliance on U.S.-Mexico routes. In addition, Northwest will be an entirely new entrant on the U.S.-Mexico routes now served only by Alaska, Continental and other carriers, bringing new network competition and service options to those routes.
Counsel: Northwest, Megan Rae Poldy, 202-842-3193
| OST-97-2209 | Filed February 5, 1998 Issued March 22, 1999 |
Notice of Action Taken |
U.S.-Thailand All Cargo |
By Order 96-9-16 the Department allocated Northwest Airlines three weekly frequencies to expand its U.S.-Thailand all-cargo operations, and confirmed the allocation of two previously awarded frequencies. Under the terms of the order, Northwest's frequency allocation would expire April 1, 1997, if Northwest did not begin service with the three additional frequencies by that date. The award of all five frequencies was also subject to the condition that the frequency allocation would expire and the frequencies would automatically revert to the Department for reallocation if they are not used for a period of 90 days after service was inaugurated. Northwest is currently operating four frequencies. The Department has granted extensions of the startup date for one of Northwest's allocated frequencies. (See Orders 97-5-6 and 98-1-6 and Notice of Action Taken dated June 15, 1998.) Northwest seeks an exemption to the extent necessary to extend further its proposed startup to December 31, 1999, for the fifth frequency. Northwest states that because of existing economic conditions in Thailand, the optimum date to commence operations with the fifth frequency is December31, 1999.
By: Paul Gretch
Notice of Proposed Rulemaking: Fees and Charges for Special Services
| OST-99-5003 | March 22, 1999 | Comments of Aer Turas
Teoranta |
NPRM: Fees and Charges for Special Services |
Counsel: Crowell & Moring, Lorraine Halloway, 202.624.2500, lhalloway@cromor.com
| OST-99-5003 | March 22, 1999 | Comments of Air 2000
Limited |
NPRM: Fees and Charges for Special Services |
Counsel: Crowell & Moring, Lorraine Halloway, 202.624.2500, lhalloway@cromor.com
| OST-99-5003 | March 22, 1999 | Comments of Air Canada |
NPRM: Fees and Charges for Special Services |
The Department must balance the desire to recover $248,000 in licensing "costs" against its obligation to promote the development of an efficient international air transportation system that benefits the traveling and shipping public, and its obligation to minimize government interference and regulation in this area. In Air Canada's opinion, a rational balancing of such competing interests favors the retention of the reciprocal waiver provision for foreign carriers. However, if DOT were to decide to abandon its system of reciprocity-based waivers, then it must more closely tailor its proposed fees to its true cost of providing service to foreign air carriers.
Counsel: GKMG, Anita Mosner
| OST-99-5003 | March 22, 1999 | Comments of Air France |
NPRM: Fees and Charges for Special Services |
The Department's regulatory role in such licensing situations is limited. The operating rights and code-share rights are provided for by the bilateral agreement. and the Department has no discretion to disapprove requests that meet the terms of the bilateral agreement l rider these circumstances, anything more than a de minimum fee is excessive, cannot be justified under the terms of the bilateral agreement, and is therefore in violation of the above-referenced bilateral agreement provisions.
Counsel: Bagileo Silverberg, Michael Goldman, 202-944-3305
| OST-99-5003 | March 22, 1999 | Comments of The Air
Transport Association of America |
NPRM: Fees and Charges for Special Services |
ATA urges the Department to reconsider this approach, which will inevitably result in retaliatory action being taken against U.S. carriers by foreign governments.. At the very least, the Department should defer this portion of the NPRM pending the solicitation and receipt of data from affected U.S. carriers that would face foreign governments' imposition of comparable, if not greater, fee increases if such a proposal is adopted. U.S. airlines hold foreign licenses in a number of countries, many of which are subject to the processing fee waivers that the Department has issued. We suggest that the Department issue in this docket a supplemental NPRM requesting that all U.S. carriers with international operations provide an estimate of the annual increased fees they would likely be required to pay to foreign governments if the Department ends the fee waiver program. Based on such data, the Department would then be in a position to compare the benefits of the current program with the fee increases that U.S. carriers could experience abroad.
Counsel: ATA, James Casey, 202-626-4211
| OST-99-5003 | March 22, 1999 | Comments of Allegro |
NPRM: Fees and Charges for Special Services |
| Attachment A: Charter Statements of Authorizations Costs |
For the reasons set forth below, the Department should not require airlines to pay substantial processing fees in order to obtain regulatory authority, such as statements of authorization for Third and Fourth Freedom charter flights, that the Department is in effect required to approve pursuant to an applicable bilateral aviation agreement. Secondly, the approach that the Department has adopted to set the proposed fees is flawed as it is applied in particular to set the fees for charter statements of authorization (Item No. 48), resulting in a fee that is much higher than warranted.
Counsel: Roller & Bauer, Moffett Roller, 202-331-3300, mroller@rollerbauer.com
| OST-99-5003 | March 22, 1999 | Comments of Antonov
Design Bureau |
NPRM: Fees and Charges for Special Services |
Antonov submits that eliminating the fee waiver provisions would be contrary to long-standing DOT/CAB precedent, would establish bad policy, and would likely cause repercussions throughout the worldwide aviation industry, including retaliation against U.S. carriers by foreign governments. The waiver of filing fees based on a showing of reciprocity has, for decades, worked well for U.S. air carriers and foreign air carriers. At a time when the U.S. government has been a strong advocate of liberalizing international aviation relationships a move by the Department to abolish long-standing fee waivers based on reciprocity would be a step in the opposite direction, sending the wrong message to other countries and raising an issue that may need to be addressed during international bilateral negotiations
Counsel: Shaw Pittman, Robert Cohn, 202-663-8060
| OST-99-5003 | March 22, 1999 | Joint Comments of British
Airways and Virgin Atlantic |
NPRM: Fees and Charges for Special Services |
British Airways and Virgin Atlantic submit that elimination of the existing § 389.24 reciprocity waiver would constitute an unwarranted reversal of longstanding Department practice and policy, is not required or supported by U.S. law, and would unnecessarily disrupt widely accepted international practice.
Counsel: British Airways and Boros Garofalo, Don Hainbach, 202-822-9070 / Virgin Atantic and Wilmer Cutler, Jeffrey Shane, 202-663-6000
| OST-99-5003 | March 22, 1999 | Comments of HeavyLift
Volga Dnepr |
NPRM: Fees and Charges for Special Services |
The Department is unduly optimistic in suggesting that elimination of the present waiver provision could'' spur reciprocal action. A more realistic view would be that such action is likely. The Departments proposed action sends the wrong message to foreign governments; and that message resounds with the greatest dissonance in those countries, such as Russia, whose economies are in crisis. The Department's proposal would malice it even more difficult for such countries which are now attempting to earn their way to a more stable economic footing.
Counsel: Volga Dnepr andMilller Hamilton, Lester Bridgeman, 334-432-1414
| OST-99-5003 | March 22, 1999 | Comments of Iberia |
NPRM: Fees and Charges for Special Services |
The suggestion that a foreign air carrier pay a $400 fee per application is not an arbitrary one. At this fee level, a foreign air carrier would pay, for example, $4,000 over a five-year period in fees for processing generally unopposed and routine applications. This equates to the $4,340 fee a U.S. carrier would pay on a one-time basis for a domestic slot exemption lasting for a five-year period.
Counsel: Steptoe Johnson, William Karas, 202-429-6223
| OST-99-5003 | March 22, 1999 | Comments of International
Air Carrier Assocation |
NPRM: Fees and Charges for Special Services |
By: D R Holder, Director Ground Operations, (44) 1432 313710, iacauk@aol.com
| OST-99-5003 | March 22, 1999 | Comments of Japan
Airlines |
NPRM: Fees and Charges for Special Services |
The-gross excessiveness of the proposed fee is not solely the result of random vagaries of the relatively small sampling included in the Department's study. Establishment of separate, processing fees for U.S. and foreign carrier slot exemption supplications is supported by the real-world difference; between the two. Proceedings on U.S. carrier slot exemption applications are notably more protracted and complex, factually find legally, than proceedings on foreign carrier slot exemptions. To make matters worse, unlike U.S. carriers, foreign carriers must renew their slot exemptions twice a year ad infinitum (or until such time as more slots are created or slot requiremen1:s are eliminated completely). In contrast, the Department grants U.S. carriers exemptions of indefinite duration for domestic slots. Under the NPRM proposal, JAL would pay fees over a five-year period for an initial slot exemption and subsequent renewals (practically automatic and with minimal burden on DOT) totaling $43,400 dollars (10 x $4,340). In contrast, a U.S. carrier that obtained a domestic slot at the same time as JAL would have paid a fee of $4,340 for use of an exempt domestic slot for the same five-year period and beyond. To call such a result unjust, is a huge understatement.
Counsel: Steptoe Johnson, William Karas, 202-429-6223
| OST-99-5003 | March 22, 1999 | Joint Comments of Lufthansa
and Thai Airways |
NPRM: Fees and Charges for Special Services |
The elimination of the waiver will result in reciprocal increases and an overall increase in the costs of air transport. Regardless of whether the practice of exempting foreign carriers from paying filing fees is compelled by international law, the likely consequences of breaking with this practice clearly counsels against doing so. Simply stated, the imposition of processing fees by the United States on foreign carriers will necessarily result in other countries imposing reciprocal fees on U.S. carriers and perhaps on third country carriers too. There would be little basis for the Governments of Germany and Thailand, for example, not to reciprocate by charging U.S. carriers filling fees if the United States were to impose such charges on Lufthansa and Thai.
Counsel: Mark Bisnow for Thai, 202-966-1200 / Wilmer Cutler, James Campbell, 202-663-6000
| OST-99-5003 | March 22, 1999 | Comments of Qantas
Airways Limited |
NPRM: Fees and Charges for Special Services |
| Exhibit A: Code Share Statements of Authorization - No. 59 |
Counsel: Roller & Bauer, Moffett Roller, 202-331-3300, mroller@rollerbauer.com
| OST-99-5003 | March 22, 1999 | Comments of Scandinavian
Airlines System |
NPRM: Fees and Charges for Special Services |
As the Department is well aware, the U. S. -Scandinavian bilateral agreements, among other things, provide for an exchange of scheduled carrier route rights for U.S. and Scandinavian carriers such as SAS, they authorize code-sharing between U.S. and Scandinavian carriers, and they implicitly provide assurances that bilaterally authorized operations will be able to operate at slot-restricted airports.
Counsel: Bagileo Silverberg, Michael Goldman, 202-944-3305
Polskie Linie Lotnicze LOT, S.A.
| Order 99-3-16 OST-99-5086 |
Issued March 19, 1999 Served March 22, 1999 Posted March 22, 1999 |
Order Granting Exemption |
High Density Rule - Chicago O'Hare |
We will grant LOT an exemption to enable it to perform two weekly Warsaw-Chicago scheduled night arrivals and one weekly departure at O'Hare to Warsaw and one weekly departure at O'Hare to Krakow during the 1999 summer season, effective May 17, 1999, and terminating September 27, 1999. We find that grant of this exemption authority is consistent with the public interest. Grant of this application is also consistent with the objectives of the bilateral air services agreement between the U.S. and Poland which contemplate access to the market for carriers of either nation.
By: Charles Hunnicutt
International Air Transport Association
| Order 99-3-17 OST-99-5202 |
Issued March 22, 1999 Served March 25, 1999 |
Action on IATA Agreement |
PTC COMP 0416 dated 9 March 1999 Mail Vote 993 - Passenger Resolution 024d Amendment to Rounding unit and decimal unit for Zimbabwe Intended effective date: 1 April 1999 |
Order 99-3-17, approves and grants antitrust immunity to the IATA Agreement, subject, where applicable, to conditions previously imposed. This order is effective immediately, although petitions for reviews may be filed by April 5, 1999.
By: Paul Gretch
| OST-99-5414 | March 22, 1999 |  Application for Approval
of Agreements |
PTC2 ME-AFR 0027 dated 19 March 1999 Mail Vote 989 TC2 Middle East-Africa
Resolutions r1-r-18 Minutes PTC2 ME-AFR 0025 dated 5 March 1999 Tables PTC2 ME-AFR Fares 0026 dated 23 March 1999 Intended effective date: 1 October 1999 |
By: David O'Connor
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