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Proposed Reservation System for Unscheduled Arrivals at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport - Comments of The National Air Transport Association and Thomas Cook Airlines

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Proposed Reservation System for Unscheduled Arrivals at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport

FAA-04-19411 - Proposed Reservation System for Unscheduled Arrivals at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport

October 19, 2004

Re: Comments of The National Air Transport Association

NATA is opposed to the proposed reservation system for unscheduled arrivals at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport (ORD). The FAA proposes to implement a reservation system restricting the number of arriving unscheduled aircraft at ORD during the hours of 7:00 am through 8:59 pm, Central Time, beginning November 1, 2004, and continuing through April of 2005. NATA believes this is an unnecessary, unjustified and airline-driven restriction that creates additional financial hardships for an industry still reeling from the September 11th terrorist attacks.

Due to the nature of the general aviation industry, in particular, charter and business aviation, this restriction is an unjustifiable impediment. The “on-demand” nature of this part of the aviation industry is what appeals to the corporate users of private aircraft. The proposed reservation system will encumber the convenience of being able to freely come and go when flying in a privately operated or chartered aircraft and demonstrates a blatant favoritism towards scheduled air carriers. The suggestion within the NPRM on page 9 that operators could simply “shift certain planned flights to another time with an available reservation, or potentially operate during unrestricted hours” demonstrates clear ignorance of the appeal of the on-demand nature of the general aviation industry.

By: Eric Byer

October 21, 2004

Re: Comments of Thomas Cook Airlines UK Limited

While public charter services are nominally “nonscheduled” in nature, the ways in which these services are planned, marketed and sold are almost indistinguishable from scheduled services, These services are treated as a special category of charters under DOT regulations (see 14 CFR Part 380). The significant differences and other non-scheduled services simply must be accounted for when setting procedures for the allocation of arrival reservations.

Operators of “programmed charters” plan their services far in advance of proposed flight dates. For example, Apple Vacations tends to plan its charter services at least a year in advance, and files a charter prospectus with the US Department of Transportation many months before the services are operated. The prospectus contains, among other things, the points to be served by each aircraft, and the proposed departure and arrival times for each flight. For example, a review of the charter prospectus on file for Apple Vacations for the charter program it offers in conjunction with Ryan International indicates that between the months of December 2004 and April 2005, Apple Vacations will be providing service between Chicago and Cancun every day except Tuesday, and will operate from Chicago to various Caribbean and Mexican points on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays through these time periods. See DOT Office of Public Charters, Charter PC-04-140. The prospectus covers 495 roundtrip operations. Although the flights at issue are not published in the Official Airline Guide, they are operated on a fixed schedule, week after week, for a period of several months, in very much the same way as a scheduled carrier might offer a seasonal service to a leisure destination on a less-than daily basis.

Just as a scheduled carrier would find the prospect of having its flight schedule “firmed up” just days before a scheduled arrival to be unworkable, so too would the operator of a programmed charter. Many of the public charter services operated with Thomas Cook aircraft have been tightly timed to bring passengers to/from their destinations on a fixed schedule, with each aircraft scheduled to perform several flight rotations per day. Under the NPRM, flight reservations could not be made more than 72 hours in advance at a planned arrival. The disruption which would occur by having to “reorganize” planned flight arrivals due to last-minute changes required by the FAA would undermine the entire flight schedule proposed by these charter operators, and the carriers which serve them. Moreover, with charter passengers often at their holiday destinations for a week, the logistics of notifying passengers of any last minute “adjustments” to the times of their planned return trips to Chicago when they are at their foreign destinations would cause untold inconvenience and hardship to the travelling public.

Counsel: Garfinkle Wang, Anita Mosner, 703-294-5890

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