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OST-00-7750

United Air Lines, Inc.

United Air Lines, Inc., pursuant to 49 U.S.C. § 40109 and Subpart D of the Department's Rules of Practice, hereby applies for an exemption from 49 U. S.C. § 41101 authorizing it to provide scheduled foreign air transportation of persons, property and mail between any point or points in the United States, on the one hand, and Tirana, Albania; Tbilisi, Georgia; Yerevan, Armenia; Skopje and Ohrid, Macedonia; Split, Croatia; Kosice, Slovakia; Banja Luka and Mostar, Bosnia; Ljubljana, Slovenia; Male, Maldives; and Kathmandu, Nepal, on the other, directly and via intermediate points and beyond to any point or points in third countries. United proposes to operate these services on a third-country code-share basis in conjunction with Austrian Airlines ("Austrian") and its affiliates, Lauda Air Luftfahrt AG, and Tyrolean Airways, Tiroler Luftfahrt AG via Vienna, Austria, commencing on or about October 29, 2000.

Tyrolean is a regional partner and wholly-owned subsidiary of Austrian. Lauda, which operates transatlantic services to Miami and a network of services within Europe and to other international points, is an Austrian affiliate, in which Austrian holds a substantial minority interest.  United will not be offering service under its own designator code to local (fifth freedom) passengers between Vienna and the points in third countries listed in Attachment A, but will be selling services to passengers between those points and the United States.

Counsel:  Wilmer Cutler, Jeffery Manley, 202.663.6670, jmanley@wilmer.com 

American Airlines, Inc. / United Air Lines, Inc.

As the United States has not entered into a bilateral air services agreement with Georgia, aviation relations between the two countries are governed by principles of comity and reciprocity. Under such circumstances, Georgia may decide to grant or deny U.S. carrier applications for third-country code sharing at its discretion. United is concerned that if the Department approves American's application before United's contemporaneous application, United could be unfairly prejudiced when it seeks corresponding authority from the Georgian government. If the Department were to approve American's application before United's, American could gain the unwarranted advantage of being able to implement third-country code-share service to Georgia sooner than United, and could even receive authority from the Georgian government to the exclusion of United in the event that Georgia were to decide to exercise its discretion to select only one U.S. carrier (i.e., the first carrier authorized by the Department) to operate such service.

United's concerns in this regard extend beyond the context of U.S.-Georgia thirdcountry code sharing to other circumstances in which multiple U.S. carriers apply contemporaneously for authority to implement competing code-share services to a foreign country with which the U.S. either has not entered into a bilateral agreement or, if such an agreement exists, it does not specifically provide for the form of code sharing proposed. In such circumstances, a decision by the Department to approve one application in advance of approving another, otherwise similarly-situated, contemporaneous application for no discernible substantive reason, could be erroneously interpreted by a foreign government as implying that the Department favors the first applicant. This could be particularly prejudicial to the second applicant in a situation in which the foreign government is already predisposed (for whatever reason) to favor the applicant first approved by the Department.

Moreover, the Department has recently established a policy of referring to the FAA for clearance all U.S. carrier applications for code sharing with a foreign carrier. Consequently, even after the Department has completed its own review and is satisfied that a particular code-share application should be approved, the Department withholds its approval until the FAA has provided the requisite clearance for the proposed codesharing arrangement. The resulting delay in the Department's issuance of an approval notice or order often is not attributable to any specific problem with a particular application, but rather may be a function of the FAA's process for managing a backlog of such applications.

Counsel:  Wilmer Cutler, Jeffery Manley, 202.663.6670, jmanley@wilmer.com

United Air Lines, Inc.

Scheduled foreign air transportation of persons, property and mail between any point or points in the United States, on the one hand, and Tirana, Albania; Tbilisi, Georgia; Yerevan, Armenia; Skopje and Ohrid, Macedonia; Split, Croatia; Kosice, Slovakia; Banja Luka and Mostar, Bosnia; Ljubljana, Slovenia; Male, Maldives; and Katmandu, Nepal, on the other, directly and via intermediate points and beyond to any point or points in third countries. United also requests authority to integrate its exemption here with all other United services authorized by existing certificates and exemptions granted by the Department, to the extent permitted by international agreements.

By:  Paul Gretch

United Air Lines, Inc.

United Air Lines, Inc. pursuant to 49 U.S.C. § 40109 and Subpart C of the Department's Rules of Practice (14 C.F.R. Part 302), hereby applies for renewal of its exemption to provide scheduled foreign air transportation of persons, property and mail between any point or points in the United States, on the one hand, and Tirana, Albania; Tbilisi, Georgia; Yerevan, Armenia; Skopje and Ohrid, Macedonia; Split, Croatia; Kosice, Slovakia; Banja Luka and Mostar, Bosnia; Ljubljana, Slovenia; Male, Maldives; and Kathmandu, Nepal, on the other, directly and via intermediate points and beyond to any point or points in third countries, including route integration authority. United requests that this exemption be renewed for a period of two years or until the Department grants a permanent certificate of public convenience and necessity which includes such authority.

Renewal of the exemption authority, as requested herein, is clearly in the public interest as it will ensure the continuation and further development of these services. The exemption enables United to provide online services in conjunction with its code-share partners, Austrian Airlines and its affiliates: Lauda Air Luftfahrt GmbH and Tyrolean Airways, Tiroler Luftfahrt AG, between the U.S. and the points named above via Vienna, Austria.2 United presently is offering code-share service to pursuant to the exemption authority which it seeks to renew.

Counsel:  United and Wilmer Cutler, Jeffrey Manley, 202-663-6670

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