OST-98-4076 / Fine Air Services (For Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity) / July 14, 1998

In the matter of the application of

for a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity authorizing scheduled services for which Fine Air currently holds exemption authority

Fine Air Services ("Fine Air") hereby applies, pursuant to 49 U.S.C. §41102 and Subpart Q of the Department's Procedural Regulations (14 C.F.R. Part 302.1701), for a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity authorizing Fine Air to provide scheduled foreign air transportation of property and mail to points in fifteen countries for which Fine Air currently holds only exemption authority. In the cause of administrative convenience, Fine Air also asks -- as have other all-cargo carriers recently 1/ -- that the Department issue it certificate authority to provide scheduled all-cargo services to various other countries which place no limits on U.S.-flag all-cargo service designations or frequencies.

Since its creation in 1992, Fine Air Services, Inc. ("Fine Airs) has applied for and been granted by the Department multiple exemption authorities to conduct scheduled services to points in Latin America and Europe. As Fine Air has grown its route network, these authorities -- each with its own expiration date -- have multiplied in number, requiring the filing of numerous renewal applications annually. Given that Fine Air is now a well-established carrier, 2/ and to reduce the administrative burden on Fine Air and the Department of filing and acting upon repeated exemption renewal applications, Fine Air asks that most of its exemption authorities 3/ be converted to certificate authority of indefinite duration. 4/ Fine Air submits that prompt approval of the instant application is clearly in the public interest. It will be both an administrative convenience, and help ensure that Fine Air is able to continue operating its network of all-cargo services that have, over the past six years, been enthusiastically received by shippers and receivers.

2/ Over the past four years, Fine Air is the leading carrier of international air cargo to and from Miami International Airport

3/ Although it also holds scheduled all-cargo authority to serve points in Colombia and Ecuador, see Notices of Action Taken dated May 2, 1997 (Docket OST-97-2162 (U.S.-Colombia)) and May 27, 1998 Docket OST-96-1039 (U.S.-Ecuador)), Fine Air is not here seeking that such authority be converted to certificate authority given that the U.S.-Colombia and U.S.-Ecuador markets are governed by frequency and/or designation limitations.

4/Pending the issuance of a new Certificate, Fine Air is today filing, in a separate docket, a conditional application for renewal of the relevant exemption authorities. 

In support of this application, an dictated by the Department's regulations governing certificate applications, Fine Air submits the following:

(a) Fine Air is a corporation organized under the laws of the State of Florida, with its principal offices at 2361 N.W. 67 Avenue, Building 700, Miami, Florida, 33152.

5/ As Fine Air informed the Air Carrier Fitness Division, it has recently undergone a nominal change in ownership. In connection with a $200 million private placement debt offering, Fine Air's shares -- formerly owned entirely by Frank and Barry Fine -- were placed in Fine Air Services Corp., a Delaware S Corporation. Fine Air Services Corp. is wholly owned by Frank and Barry Fine. Accordingly, beneficial ownership and effective control of the airline remains unchanged.

(d) Fine Air also holds exemption authorities listed in Appendix A. As set forth above, Fine Air seeks to convert these exemption authorities to certificate authority.

(e) Accordingly, Fine Air hereby requests that it be issued a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity authorizing Fine Air:

(i) To provide scheduled foreign air transportation of property and mail between any point or points in the United States and any point or points in the following countries (and to intermediate and beyond points as permitted in the relevant bilateral agreements): Barbados, Costa Rica, E1 Salvador, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Spain, and Trinidad and Tobago;

(ii) To provide scheduled foreign air transportation of property and mail between any point or points in the United States and any point or points in the following countries (and to intermediate and beyond points as permitted in the relevant bilateral agreements): Albania, Armenia, Aruba, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia, Botswana, Bulgaria, Cote d'Ivoire, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Ethiopia, Georgia, Ghana, Greece, Hungary, Jordan, Kyrgyz Republic, Latvia, Lithuania, Macao, Macedonia, Malawi, Malta, Moldova, Namibia, Netherlands Antilles, New Zealand, Qatar, Slovakia, Slovenia, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Turkmenistan, Uganda, Uzbekistan, and Zaire; 6/

(iii) To provide scheduled foreign air transportation of property and mail between any point or points in the United States and the coterminal points Kingston and Montego Bay, Jamaica (and to intermediate and beyond points as permitted in the relevant bilateral agreements);

(iv) To provide scheduled foreign air transportation of property and mail between any point or points in the United States, on the one hand, and La Paz and Santa Cruz, Bolivia; Asuncion, Paraguay; and Montevideo, Uruguay, on the other (and to intermediate and beyond points as permitted in the relevant bilateral agreements, but without local traffic rights between La Paz and Santa Cruz);

(v) To integrate all the above-listed route authorities, and to commingle traffic on services conducted

6/ Unlike the other authority specified herein, Fine Air has not in the past served these countries, nor does it currently intend to commence scheduled services to these countries. Nonetheless, as pointed out in FedEx's and UPS's Certificate applications referenced above, bilateral agreements/comity and reciprocity support unlimited all-cargo services to these countries. Certainly, Fine Air has as much claim to scheduled authority to serve these points as any of the other U.S. all-cargo carriers seeking such authority. However, if the Department decides not to grant scheduled authority to serve such points to Fine Air and/or any of the other carriers to have applied for such authority, Fine Air nonetheless urges the Department to grant the remainder of the certificate authority which Fine Air seeks herein.

pursuant to such authorities, to the extent permitted under relevant bilateral agreements.

(f) Grant of the scheduled all-cargo authority requested in this application is wholly consistent with the relevant bilateral agreements or arrangements between the United States and each of the countries listed above. The United States has in place bilateral agreements with all of these countries containing liberal provisions with respect to all-cargo air transportation (i.e., containing no limitations on frequencies or designations) and/or comity and reciprocity regimes.

(g) Fine Air asks that the requested new certificate authority be granted for an indefinite term, based on the absence of any limitations on designations or frequencies that may be operated by U.S. all-cargo carriers to the countries in question.

(h) As set forth above, the instant application primarily seeks to convert authority Fine Air already holds pursuant to exemptions to certificate authority. It is not submitted in contemplation of any change in Fine Air's current operations. Accordingly, the approval of the application is not expected to result in any change in the annual fuel consumption of Fine Air, and thus will not constitute a major regulatory action by the Department within the meaning of Section 313.4(a)(1) of the Department's Economic Regulations. Similarly, Fine Air does not here submit detailed information regarding proposed flight schedules, etc. as normally required by Sections 201.4(e), 201.4(f), 302.1704 and 302.1706 of the Department's regulations when an applicant seeks authority for a new service; to the extent necessary, Fine Air asks the Department to waive this requirement. 7/

(i) Prompt approval of this application is clearly in the public interest because it will ensure that Fine Air is able to continue to operate its services for the benefit of shippers/receivers, and will eliminate the need for repeated filing of exemption renewal applications.

WHEREFORE, Fine Air respectfully requests that the Department issue Fine Air Services, Inc. a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity authorizing Fine Air to provide

7/ Fine Air is, of course, willing to provide the Department any information it might require regarding Fine Air's current or intended future operations.

scheduled foreign air transportation of property and mail as specified herein.

Respectfully submitted,

WILMER CUTLER, Jeff Shane, Karan Bhatia

(202) 663-6000

Counsel for FINE AIR SERVICES, INC.

Dated: July 14, 1998