Applications and Petitions: None Answers and Replies: Operating Limitations at Newark - Comments of Kalitta Air, Legislature of Rockland County - Majority, Porter Airlines and Virgin America Policy Regarding Airport Rates and Charges - Comments of George Mason Univ. Regulatory Studies Program, IATA, Kuwait Airways, Lufthansa, Newport News-Williamsburg Int'l Airport and Regional Airport Planning Committee Orders and Notices: None Rules and Regulations: None Grant of Petitions: None

	Operating Limitations at Newark Liberty International Airport FAA-2008-0221 April 1, 2008 Comments of Kalitta Air Unlike scheduled passenger service, where both passengers and the airlines are best served when flights depart on time and on schedule, regularity does not equate to efficiency or superior customer service for Kalitta's EWR military mail operations. Currently, Kalitta operates a flight scheduled for 7:00 p.m. on a daily basis, and a second flight, scheduled for 3:00 p.m. (all times local), approximately three times per week. In order to transport the greatest amount of mail in a timely and efficient manner, these scheduled flights do not always operate on time. Moreover, under the current practice at EWR, Kalitta is able to add flights when needed, and at times that allow it to carry all available mail, thus maximizing usage of its aircraft. Under the proposed order, Kalitta would lose this flexibility. Although Kalitta can predict that it will operate at least one flight a day from EWR, and may be able to operate that flight within a 30-minute allowed Operating Authorization window, the carrier cannot predict how frequently it will need to operate a second (or further) daily flight, or at what time sufficient mail will have been tendered to Kalitta to make such a flight necessary, or feasible. Thus, even if Kalitta were to receive GAs for a second daily flight, the carrier very well may not be in a position to operate such flights more than 80% of the time. Under the proposed order's "use it or lose it" provisions, Kalitta would therefore be stripped of the opportunity to conduct such flights when necessary. This problem would be heightened during the high-volume holiday season, when the carrier temporarily needs to operate multiple daily flights. Counsel: Sher & Blackwell, Mark Atwood, 202-463-2513 April 1, 2008 Comments of the Legislature of Rockland County - Majority We are writing to support the proposed Newark Airport Flight Caps and the imposition of Operating Limitations at Newark Liberty International Airport in Newark, New Jersey scheduled to take effect on June 1, 2008. We believe that such flight caps will both improve operational safety, convenience and efficiency at Newark Airport and also benefit the health, welfare and safety of the surrounding communities which are under the flight paths and are serviced by Newark Airport, including the residents of Rockland County. In addition, we are of the strongly held view that implementation of the proposed caps should override the need for the proposed NY/NJ/PHL FAA Airspace Redesign Plan which has been proposed and which would send hundreds of flights headed for Newark Airport over Rockland County each day. As you know, the Rockland County Legislature is already on record as being strongly opposed to such Redesign Plan as it will adversely and negatively impact many Rockland County residents due to extreme noise and safety concerns. Rockland County is currently engaged in litigation opposing the implementation of such Redesign Plan and, given the congestion in the air corridor serviced by Newark Airport and the other New York airports, it is clear that imposing flight caps is a more sensible approach to managing the congestion of the affected air space than the proposed Redesign Plan. By: Legislature April 1, 2008 Comments of Porter Airlines - Bookmarked Porter is a new entrant to the U.S. market, having commenced scheduled operations from Toronto to Newark on March 31, 2008. Porter operates seven daily roundtrips to Newark on a schedule that was approved during the Summer 2008 IATA Schedules Conference. As a new entrant, it is critically important that Porter be permitted to continue operating its existing previously approved schedule (see Exhibit A) upon which Porter has relied in its decision to commence its Newark service. Porter exclusively operates brand new state of the art Bombardier Q400 turboprop aircraft – an advanced turboprop aircraft uniquely situated to perform most operations on runway 11/29 – not, as seems to have been contemplated in the FAA’s Order, Newark’s longer parallel runways. The effect of the Order on Porter’s schedule is that its most important weekday and Sunday departure and arrival have been eliminated, and other flights have been moved too late in the evening to operate within the limits of the Toronto City Centre Airport’s curfew, resulting in the unintended reduction of Porter’s round-trip flights from seven to five. This proposed reduction would eliminate all Porter departures from Newark after 16:00. The FAA’s Final Order should be amended to include the previously approved and currently operated 17:30 arrival and 18:30 departure as well as to readjust the 21:00 arrival back to 20:00 and the 21:30 departure back to 20:30 to ensure Porter can continue operating these flights within the confines of the mandatory Toronto City Centre Airport curfew. The proposed changes to Porter’s previously approved schedule in the draft Order will undermine the viability of its operations at a critical stage in its development and result in a schedule that is not economically viable. In addition, the FAA must recognize its obligation under the U.S. – Canada Open Skies Agreement to provide Porter with a fair and equal opportunity to participate and compete in the trans-border air transportation marketplace. Counsel: Zuckert Scoutt, John Gillick, 202-973-7939, jegillick@zsrlaw.com April 1, 2008 Comments of Virgin America - Bookmarked Virgin America believes the Proposed Order should be modified because it (i) failed to follow proper administrative procedure, established during the very recent and comparable JFK scheduling reduction efforts; (ii) effectively shuts out new domestic entrants at Newark, while erecting a formidable new barrier to entry; and (iii) enhances the market power of Continental, the dominant legacy carrier at Newark. Continental now maintains a 72% market share at Newark; over one-half of all domestic non-stop routes at Newark are already total or near monopolistic routes. If the FAA instead finalizes the Proposed Order, the result will be direct and predictable: consumers will pay a heavy price, as fares out of Newark—now among the highest in the country—will increase to the highest in the country. Virgin America believes this anti-competitive result flies in the face of the pro-consumer goals of this Administration. Consumers should not have to suffer from the unintended consequences of governmental congestion management, nor should legacy carriers be permitted to extract monopoly rents from already suffering consumers, as the direct result of their own over-scheduling, frozen by flight caps. Flight caps are the bluntest form of congestion management, and should not be used at single carrier, hub dominated airports to further harm and thwart competition. Counsel: Pillsbury Winthrop, Kenneth Quinn, 202-663-8000, kquinn@pillsburylaw.com Index Policy Regarding Airport Rates and Charges FAA-2008-0036 April 2, 2008 Comments of the George Mason University Regulatory Studies Program In principle, allocating more costs to flights at congested times would help reduce the social costs of congestion. In practice, this cost allocation could either over- or under-adjust the prices airlines pay to use airport facilities. To reduce both possibilities, the department should require an airport that wants to charge a fee per flight operation to estimate the new revenues this fee would produce and compare them to an estimate of the social costs of congestion at that airport. If the new revenues exceed the social cost of congestion, the fee is likely too high, even if the airport’s total revenues do not exceed its total costs. If the social costs of congestion exceed the new fee revenues, the new fee may be too low. By: Jerry Ellig, 703-993-4925, jellig@gmu.edu April 2, 2008 Comments of the International Air Transport Association - Filed by Kuwait Airways IATA is disappointed with how the DOT Proposal was presented to the commercial aviation community.  The first time the industry was appraised of this approach was via a brief presentation during a meeting of the 2007 Aviation Rulemaking Committee.  No advance notice of the presentation was provided and little time was set aside for discussion or consideration.  Given the time and expense dedicated to the ARC process by the airlines and their trade associations, and the airlines nearly unanimous rejection of pricing as an effective means to manage aviation congestion, we feel justified in our expectation that there would have been a more comprehensive review of these proposals by the ARC stakeholders prior to their publication in the Federal Register. The DOT Proposal undermines both the letter and spirit of these monopoly controls by significantly expanding the list of allowable costs against which an airport can charge its users.  This in turn offers airports the ability to circumvent appropriate financial controls in the name of congestion management.  This would likely result in   increased costs for airlines and their passengers, disruption/elimination of service (particularly to local communities) and discrimination against certain classes of airlines and aircraft.  Equally troubling is the fact that the DOT Proposal does not offer any promise that this radical change in DOT rates and charges policy will have a significant impact on managing airport congestion. We believe that the DOT proposal is an unjustified attempt to circumvent long held policies in order to encourage airports to use “market mechanisms” to manage airport congestion.  No direct evidence has been offered to prove that the implementation of these pricing policies is more likely to control congestion than making the difficult economic and political investments in enhanced technology, infrastructure and procedures at congested airports and in congested airspace.  Removing needed restrictions on monopoly-based charging, while at the same time pursuing federally sanctioned auctions of new capacity will ensure an uncoordinated, non-standardized, costly and likely unsuccessful effort to address the serious and growing issue of airport congestion. Counsel: IATA, Douglas Lavin, 202-628-9292 April 2, 2008 Comments of Kuwait Airways - Kuwait Airways Filed IATA's Comments Kuwait Airways fully support IATA attached view on the subject matter for the possible negative implication on worldwide travel industry if applied as proposed. By: Kuwait, Khaled Alajmi, PO Box 394, Safat, Kuwait April 2, 2008 Comments of Lufthansa Whereas Lufthansa rejects the measures of the Proposed Amendments as not being the effective instruments to mitigate congestion, Lufthansa reaffirms the validity of the current ICAO’s Policies on Charges for Airports and Air Navigation Services (Seventh Edition 2004, Doc 9082/7) and supports the current industry best practices set forth in the IATA Worldwide Scheduling Guidelines and reflected in EU Council Regulation 95/93 (on common rules for the allocation of slots at EU airports) for successfully managing congested airports around the world. These Guidelines offer a framework for the collaboration between airports and airlines necessary to ensure that carriers can plan future schedules with reliability based on historic flight patterns. The Guidelines also provide the requisite flexibility to accommodate ongoing adjustments in response to changes in the marketplace demand in order to better serve the needs of our passengers around the world. Lufthansa looks forward to continuing to actively participate in the critical dialogue needed to resolve airport capacity issues and to work with airports, other airlines, and governments to ensure the challenges of airport capacity can be met with sound solutions that support a vital and growing global airline industry. Counsel: Lufthansa, Natalie Hartman April 2, 2008 Comments of Newport News-Williamsburg International Airport Operators of multiple airports are currently allowed to cross subsidize reliever airports. It is a small leap to include other than designated reliever airports in a local system of airports. While this policy puts a price on access to scarce system resources, it is non-discriminatory because it still allows access in the system. Newport News is concerned with the statement that "it would not appear to be appropriate to permit an airport that is not congested in 2005 to rely on provisions applicable to congested airports in setting fees today." This purported policy would treat airports differently, including those airports considering funding expansion as opposed to fees that can be charged at "congested" airports. The Department should also consider airport rate mechanics that would allow airports to provide incentives for more point-to-point service from non-congested airports, to other airports. This would also relieve some congestion at "congested" airports by allowing flights to bypass congested hubs. By: Airport Director, James Smith, 757-877-0221 March 28, 2008 Comments of the Regional Airport Planning Committee We understand that there are several potential issues with congestion fees: 1) airlines may choose to simply pass on the extra costs to the customer with no changes to their operations, and 2) the peak period fees may not be large enough to influence operations, as they would be limited by FAA's current airport cost policy requiring revenue neutrality. Since it is not known how the market will actually react to this new approach, the policy would provide real world experience. which could then lead to further changes in the policy. In the absence of other mechanisms for managing congestion, RAPC believes allowing airports to institute a two-part landing fee is a reasonable and needed change in policy that will also inform future demand management approaches. Absent an effective market based system, it seems the only other solution would be to revert to slot controls at congested airports, which have their own set of issues. However, before slot controls are considered again, airports should be allowed to experiment with true congestion pricing where fees can be set at a level that would have a significant effect on demand. Because these fees could generate excess airport revenues, the FAA's policy on revenue neutrality would need to be altered. However, if the policy change requires that these additional revenues be used to enhance airport and airspace capacity, there would be a reasonable nexus between the fees and the benefits to airport users. By: RAPC, Rich Garbarino, 510-817-5700 Index