Applications and Petitions: None Answers and Replies: Congestion Management Rule of JFK and Newark - FAA Letter to PANYNJ - Denial of Request to Extend Comment Period / Comments of American, AEA, Cathay Pacific, KLM, Malaysia Airlines, Singapore Airlines and United / Empirical Analysis of Slot Trading in the US by Ehime University Prof. Orders and Notices: None Rules and Regulations: None Grant of Petitions: None

	Congestion Management Rule for John F. Kennedy International Airport and Newark Liberty International Airport FAA-2008-0517 July 18, 2008 Re: FAA Letter to Port Authority of New York & New Jersey - Denial of Extension Request You have based your request on several assertions, many of which were also raised by the various air carrier associations with members who serve LaGuardia, JFK and Newark airports. To the extent the FAA has already responded to those assertions in this docket or the recent proposed rulemaking at LaGuardia Airport, entitled "Congestion Management Rule for LaGuardia Airport" (Docket No. FAA-2006-25709), I will not repeat the agency's position here. Rather, I direct you to the docket for these rulemakings for an explanation of why we believe these issues do not support an extension of the comment period. You have also raised some additional concerns that I am happy to address. By: FAA, Rebecca MacPherson July 21, 2008 Comments of American Airlines American was extremely disappointed by the FAA’s decision to expand its plan to confiscate and auction slots at LaGuardia to JFK and Newark. Given the resounding criticism that the LGA NPRM received from all sides – airlines, the Port Authority and consumers – it was obvious that the LGA NPRM needed a complete overhaul in order to address the concerns that had been raised. American continues to strongly oppose unnecessary and unlawful auction schemes that would do nothing to help manage or reduce congestion. American’s comments make three major points. First, the JFK/EWR NPRM violates federal law. The FAA is explicitly forbidden from implementing slot auctions without specific Congressional authorization (a fact the FAA admitted in the LGA NPRM), while the JFK/EWR NPRM itself violates the Administrative Procedure Act and Executive Order 12866. Second, the JFK/EWR NPRM focuses on a nonexistent problem with competition in the New York region rather than the actual problem of congestion and delays. Finally, a single slot regulation for LaGuardia, JFK and Newark should be implemented with caps on operations that bring delays and cancellations down to a manageable level, while utilizing the non-controversial Worldwide Scheduling Guidelines to allocate capacity as do slot controlled airports in the rest of the world. Counsel: American, Carl Nelson, 202-496-5647 July 18, 2008 Comments of The Association of European Airlines The AEA represents 35 major European carriers, of which 19 operate regular flights to and from the United States. AEA carriers have the highest passenger volumes and largest traffic shares in air transport between Europe and the US, operating more than 190 flights per day, carrying around 42,000 passengers per day. The proposed Congestion Management Rule would have a significant negative impact on these transatlantic operations. With regard to the proposed rule, the AEA strongly and fully supports the submission by the International Air Transport Association. AEA urges the Federal Aviation Administration to adhere to applicable legal standards, and to consider more efficient solutions for airport congestion. By: AEA, Arthur Husain Khan July 21, 2008 Comments of Cathay Pacific Airways It must be recalled that the original driver for action was the fact that both JFK and EWR are plagued by chronic delays. The measures mentioned above have the proven ability to resolve the delay situation, balance capacity with demand and avoid additional or new financial mechanisms. Cathay Pacific Airways is therefore at a loss to understand why these measures would not be pursued aggressively and why new and complex financially based mechanisms are being put forward instead. Cathay Pacific Airways would like to reiterate its opposition to the proposed Congestion Management Rule, as described in Docket Number FAA-2008-0517, and urge the Government of the United States of America, in the strongest terms, not to adopt the proposed Rule. Counsel: Cathay Pacific, Angus Barclay, 852-2747-5221 July 18, 2008 Comments of KLM Royal Dutch Airlines In fashioning its novel proposal, the FAA disregarded the fundamental principle of meaningful consultations and unceremoniously extended a similar initiative, developed for New Yark' s domestic, LaGuardia Airport, to New York's international airports, JFK and Newark. KLM is deeply concerned that, by ignoring time-tested and accepted international congestion mitigation practices, the FAA will set a dangerous international precedent. Governments around the world will use the FAA's proposal to justify using international aviation as a new revenue source that will have minimal local political impact. Slot auctions will, conservatively, lead to hundreds of millions of dollars in additional costs for incumbent airlines. Airlines that have already invested, significantly, in their operations at these airports will, in effect, be penalized, by having to pay for the privilege a second time. Counsel: KLM, Paul Mifsud, 202-861-5867 July 17, 2008 Comments of Malaysia Airlines Malaysia Airlines strongly opposes the NPRM for many reasons. The objective of this proposal is to address congestion at John F. Kennedy International Airport and Newark Liberty International Airport. However, the fundamentals of slots ownership has yet to be determined and it is imprudent to change the principle of slots allocation without first establishing the ownership of the slots. Furthermore, to presume that the slots belong to FAA is unfounded when all this while the slots has been granted to the operating airlines. Inadequate and inefficient infrastructure clearly contributes to airport congestion but measures to improve the infrastructure were not addressed in the NPRM. Regulators and airport operators should look at ways to increase the number of slots by to looking at ways to expand the airport infrastructure and increase their efficiency. By: Malaysia Airlines, Germal Singh Khera July 21, 2008 Comments of Singapore Airlines Although the proposal does not have direct impact on Singapore Airlines’ existing operations at either airport, it will disrupt our intentions to ramp up capacity to New York in future. The slot auction mechanism will impute additional cost and complexity to the introduction of future services at either airport, and poses a constraint that affects our exercise of rights under the “fair and equal” opportunity clause of our bilateral agreement with the United States. We suggest that airspace re-design initiatives and investment in air traffic control infrastructure be made in order to increase capacity and improve traffic flow. By: Singapore Airlines July 21, 2008 Comments of United Air Lines The NPRM for JFK and EWR mirrors the Supplemental Notice of Proposed Rulemaking ("SNPRM") that the FAA issued a month earlier purportedly to address congestion at New York's LaGuardia Airport. As in the case of the SNPRM for LGA, the FAA's stated objective in the NPRM for JFK/EWR is to reduce anticipated congestion and delay, but its core proposal - to confiscate slots from incumbent carriers and reallocate them through an auction mechanism (the details of which remain to be worked out) -has nothing to do with that objective. More importantly, the FAA lacks statutory authority to implement a slot auction regime. And, to make matters worse, if finalized, the proposal could lead to less efficient slot utilization, disruption and termination of some existing services (particularly to smaller communities), higher prices for consumers, and a competitive disadvantage for U.S. carriers serving foreign destinations. The actions contemplated in the NPRM, in short, are both unlawful and ill advised. Counsel: United and Wilmer Cutler, Bruce Rabinovitz, 202-663-6960 FAA-2008-0517 FAA-2006-25709 July 21, 2008 An Empirical Analysis of Airport Slot Trading in the US The purpose of this paper is to examine quantitatively whether the control of takeoff and landing slots by slot-holding carriers have resulted in restricted market entry and service expansion by other carriers, especially rival carriers, at the four U.S. airports that have secondary slot markets. Deregulation of the air transport sector has facilitated entry of new air carriers and increased competition among existing carriers. As a result, however, the scarcity of airport slots at many major airports has become a serious problem, potentially limiting competition. It has been suggested, mainly on theoretical grounds, that market mechanisms for allocating slots would increase the possibility of new entry and service expansion by other more efficient carriers. However, the empirical effects of slot markets have not been investigated systematically. This paper examines whether slot markets have resulted in new entry and service expansion by other carriers, especially rival carriers. Slot transfer data from four U.S. airports between 1994 and 1999 were examined using regression analysis. Results of the analysis were mixed, suggesting that the necessity and appropriateness of pro-competitive interventions depends on market conditions and circumstances unique to each airport, and that subsequent interventions should reflect those conditions and circumstances. By: Ehime University, Hideki Fukui, 81-89-927-8208 Index