BEFORE THE 

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION 

WASHINGTON, D.C. 

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In the matter of: : 

 : 

Final Rule : 

Enhancing Airline : Docket No. DOT-OST-2007-0022 

Passenger Protections : 

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SUPPLEMENTAL INFORMATION TO SUPPORT 

THE REQUEST TO EXTEND EFFECTIVE DATE 

The Air Transport Association of America, Inc.1 (ATA) submits this supplemental filing to 

support our January 22, 2010 request to extend the effective date for certain flight time metrics 

required by the Department’s consumer protection final rule published in the Federal Register at 

74 FR 68983 on December 30, 2009 with an effective date of April 29, 2010. We provide 

additional information concerning the process and time required for carriers to comply with 14 

CFR 234.11(b). 

As discussed in our original request, each carrier will have to report on its website the following 

for each of its own operated and marketed (codeshare) domestic flights: (1) the percentage of 

arrivals that were on time, i.e. a flight that arrives less than 15 minutes after its published arrival 

time, (2) the percentage of arrivals that were more than 30 minutes late, (3) special highlighting 

if the flight was more than 30 minutes late more than 50 percent of the time, and (4) the 

percentage of flight cancellations if 5 percent or more of the flight’s operations were canceled in 

the month covered.2

 The Department also requires ticketing carriers to provide this flight 

information for domestic code-share flights or a “one click” link directly to flight information on 

the operating carrier’s website. 

In order to provide the Department with additional specific detailed information on the impact of 

these new reporting requirements, ATA surveyed its passenger-carrying members and received 

input from seven members. Carriers provided estimated time for implementing the four metrics 

described above associated with implementing the new website disclosure requirements. In 

summary, the results show that, on average, each passenger carrier will expend approximately 

1550 hours to provide the new disclosure requirements. We note that one carrier estimates it will 

take a minimum of 4000 hours to complete these changes, given its complex reservation and 

codeshare system. The average 1550 hours translates into an approximately 5.5 month project. 

 

1

 ATA airline members are: ABX Air, Inc.; AirTran Airways; Alaska Airlines, Inc.; American Airlines, Inc.; 

ASTAR Air Cargo, Inc.; Atlas Air, Inc.; Continental Airlines, Inc.; Delta Air Lines, Inc.; Evergreen International 

Airlines, Inc.; Federal Express Corporation; Hawaiian Airlines; JetBlue Airways Corp.; Southwest Airlines Co.; 

United Airlines, Inc.; UPS Airlines; and US Airways, Inc. ATA Airline Associate Members are: Air Canada; Air 

Jamaica Ltd.; and Mexicana. 

2

 See 14 CFR 234.11, 74 FR 69002. 
2

While some work has started, carriers have spent the past month determining the new regulatory 

requirements and identifying the system changes that are needed in order to begin the first phase 

of system design and functionality work. Carriers also needed clarification on some aspects of 

the new rule. For instance it was not clear to ticketing carriers to what extent they needed to 

display domestic codeshare flight information. After obtaining additional guidance from DOT, it 

is now clear that a “one-click” link to specific flight information on an operating carrier’s 

website meets the intent of the new rule, whereas a general link to an operating carrier’s website 

does not meet the intent of the rule. 

As discussed in our original request for extension, this work will spread across several company 

disciplines including business, legal, design, programming, testing, and deployment. It is 

important to note that each area of work must be completed in succession; therefore, areas of 

work cannot be completed at the same time. In addition, progress or delays at one carrier will 

impact the compliance schedule at all of its domestic codeshare partners (including other 

mainline carriers), given the requirement to post flight information for domestic code share 

partners. As the Department is aware, carriers have unique and diverse systems, presenting 

unique challenges to each carrier. For instance a larger carrier with several domestic code share 

partners will need to coordinate flight time information with each partner but may have 

additional staff to do so. A smaller carrier may have fewer codeshare partners but may have 

fewer resources to do so. Some carriers currently display on-time arrival information for flights, 

some do not. The requirement to display codeshare information will be effected most efficiently 

by developing an IATA standard for this information to be shared among carriers. A number of 

U.S. carriers are in discussion regarding creating and implementing such a standard. 

Standardization normally requires a minimum 60 day approval process once the data standards 

are defined. 

Each carrier will have to design, program, test, and deploy changes based on its current data 

capabilities. Members have identified changes that must occur in several areas, including data 

file specifications (capturing new metrics), data exceptions and discrepancies, data storage 

mechanism(s) and specifications, and website user interface and display. Based on a survey of 

our members, the average design phase for the elements described above will be approximately 

415 hours or approximately six weeks. The average programming changes once design is 

complete will be approximately 560 hours or two months. Once programming is complete, the 

average testing period will be approximately 445 hours or seven weeks. The testing phase will 

include testing of data integrity with each domestic codeshare partner, which for carriers with 

many partners will be a time-consuming task. Finally, once testing is complete, the average time 

needed to deploy the changes is approximately 130 hours or two weeks. 

 

As indicated by estimates provided by our members there simply is not enough time to complete 

the changes necessary to ensure compliance with the additional flight time disclosure 

requirements in the new rule. With all parties having spent a lot of time and resources in the 

development of these new consumer rules it is important to make sure carriers have enough time 

to ensure data integrity in order to fulfill the Department’s goal of providing additional accurate 

flight information for the public. We therefore reiterate our request that the effective date for 14 

CFR 234.11(b) be extended for 90 days. In addition, we now realize that, at least for the new 
3

data elements to be displayed, the effective date of 14 CFR 234.11(c) should be extended as a 

technical matter consistent with extending the effective date of 14 CFR 234.11(b). 

Respectfully submitted, 

 

David A. Berg 

Vice President & General Counsel 

Air Transport Association of America, Inc. 

1301 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW 

Washington, DC 20004 

202-626-4000 

dberg@airlines.org

 

February 12, 2010