BEFORE THE

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION WASHINGTON, D.C.

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: Final Rule : Enhancing Airline : Docket No. DOT-OST-2007-0022 Passenger Protections :

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SUPPLEMENTAL INFORMAT ION 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 eff ective date for certain flight time metrics required by the Department’s consum er protection final rule publishe d 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 fo r 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 (codesh are) domestic flights: (1) the percentage of arrivals that were on time, i.e. a flight that ar rives less than 15 minutes after its published arrival time, (2) the percentage of arriva ls 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 fli ght’s operations were canceled in

the month covered. 2 The Department also requires ticke ting carriers to provi de this flight

information for domestic code-share flights or a “one cl ick” link directly to flight information on the operating carrier’s website.

In order to provide the Department with additiona l 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 th e new website disclosure requirements. In summary, the results show that, on average, e ach passenger carrier wi ll expend approximately 1550 hours to provide the new disclosu re requirements. We note that one carrier estimates it will take a minimum of 4000 hours to complete thes e changes, given its complex reservation and codeshare system. The average 1550 hours translates into an a pproximately 5.5 month project.

1 ATA airline members are: ABX Air, Inc.; AirTran Airway s; 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 Air lines; JetBlue Airways Corp.; Southwest Airlines Co.; United Airlines, Inc.; UPS Airlines; and US Airways, In c. 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 spen t 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. Carrier s 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 additiona l guidance from DOT, it

is now clear that a “one-click” link to specific flight inform ation on an operating carrier’s website meets the intent of the new rule, wherea s a general link to an operating carrier’s website

does not meet the intent of the rule.

As discussed in our original request for extens ion, this work will spread across several company disciplines including business, legal, design, programming, tes ting, 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 part ners (including other mainline carriers), given the requirement to pos t flight information for domestic code share partners. As the Department is aware, carri ers have unique and diverse systems, presenting unique challenges to each carrier. For instance a larger carrier with seve ral domestic code share partners will need to coordinate flight tim e information with each partner but may have

additional staff to do so. A smaller carrier ma y 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 codeshar e information will be effected most efficiently by developing an IATA standard for this informa tion to be shared among carriers. A number of U.S. carriers are in discussion regarding cr eating 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), da ta exceptions and discrepancies, data storage mechanism(s) and specifications, and website us er 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 tw o months. Once programming is complete, the average testing period will be approximately 445 hour s 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. Fi nally, once testing is complete, the average time needed to deploy the changes is ap proximately 130 hours or two weeks.

As indicated by estimates provided by our member s there simply is not enough time to complete the changes necessary to ensu re 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 provi ding additional accurate flight information for the public. We therefore reit erate our request that the effective date for 14 CFR 234.11(b) be extended for 90 days. In additi on, we now realize that, at least for the new3 data elements to be displayed, the effective da te 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