65676 Federal Register / Vol. 69, No. 219 / Monday, November 15, 2004 / Notices 

1Some carriers have referred to this increase in 

the price for tickets bought from them over the 

telephone or at a ticket counter as a ‘‘service fee’’

or by a similar phrase. However, in the context of 

the full fare advertising rule, such carrier-imposed 

‘‘fees’’ are a part of the fare and must be treated as 

such in airfare advertising.

2The full-fare advertising rule was adopted in 

large part to eliminate the prior practice where 

sellers of air transportation hid the true price of 

tickets by listing ‘‘service fees’’ in the fine print of 

advertisements. The Aviation Enforcement Office, 

therefore, does not believe the increased price of 

tickets purchased at ticket counters or by telephone 

should be referred to in terms of a ‘‘service fee’’ in 

fare advertisement because this could lead to 

significant confusion and a return to the prior 

unacceptable advertising practice.

on 81⁄2 by 11 inch paper. To the extent 

possible, any data attachments to the 

submission should be included in the 

same file as the submission itself, and 

not as separate files. E-mail submissions 

should not include separate cover letters 

or messages in the message area of the 

e-mail; information that might appear in 

any cover letter should be included 

directly in the attached file containing 

the submission itself, including 

identifying information on the sender, 

including sender’s e-mail address. 

For any document containing 

business confidential information 

submitted as an electronic attached file 

to an e-mail transmission, in addition to 

the proper marking at the top and 

bottom of each page as previously 

specified, the file name of the business 

confidential version should begin with 

the characters ‘‘BC–’’, and the file name 

of the public version should begin with 

the characters ‘‘P–’’. The ‘‘P–’’ or

‘‘BC–’’ should be followed by the name 

of the person or party (government, 

company, union, association, etc.) 

submitting the petition. Submissions by 

e-mail should not include separate 

cover letters or messages in the message 

area of the e-mail; information that 

might appear in any cover letter should 

be included directly in the attached file 

containing the submission itself. The 

electronic mail address for these 

submissions is FR0441@USTR.GOV.

Documents not submitted in 

accordance with the GSP regulations as 

modified by these instructions might 

not be considered in this review. 

Public versions of all documents 

relating to this review will be available 

for review approximately 30 days after 

the due date by appointment in the 

USTR Public Reading Room, 1724 F 

Street, NW., Washington, DC. 

Availability of documents may be 

ascertained, and appointments may be 

made from 9:30 a.m. to noon and 1 p.m. 

to 4 p.m., Monday through Friday, by 

calling (202) 395–6186.

Dated: 

H.J. Rosenbaum, 

Acting Executive Director GSP; Acting 

Chairman, GSP Subcommittee of the Trade 

Policy Staff Committee.

[FR Doc. 04–25264 Filed 11–12–04; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 3190–W5–P

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION

Office of the Secretary 

Notice of Disclosure

AGENCY: Office of the Secretary (OST), 

Department of Transportation.

ACTION: Notice on disclosure of higher 

prices for airfares purchased over the 

telephone via telephone reservations 

centers or at airline ticket offices, and 

surcharges that may be listed separately 

in fare advertisements. 

SUMMARY: The Department is publishing 

the following notice disclosure of higher 

prices for airfares purchased over the 

telephone via telephone reservations 

centers or at airline ticket offices, and 

surcharges that be listed separately in 

fare advertisements.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:

Nicholas Lowry, Attorney, Office of 

Aviation Enforcement and Proceedings 

(C–70), 400 7th Street, SW., 

Washington, DC 20590 (202) 366–9349. 

This notice is intended to provide 

guidance on two matters related to 

compliance with 14 CFR 399.84, the 

Department’s rule on full fare 

advertising, and the underlying 

statutory proscription in 49 U.S.C. 

41712 against unfair and deceptive trade 

practices. First, we address the 

disclosure in fare advertisements of 

higher prices, recently introduced by 

several air carriers, for tickets purchased 

at ticket counters or by telephone.1

Second, by this notice, we are advising 

carriers of the current policy of the 

Office of Aviation Enforcement and 

Proceedings (Aviation Enforcement 

Office) with regard to the disclosure of 

‘‘government-approved’’ surcharges.

A number of air carriers and foreign 

air carriers have recently started 

charging higher prices for tickets 

purchased by telephone or at ticket 

offices. Such airlines advertise base 

fares on the Internet or in print or other 

media, make the advertised fares 

available for purchase via the Internet 

only, and charge higher prices if 

customers purchase their tickets via an 

airline’s telephone reservation system or 

at its airport or city ticket counter. 

Section 399.84 mandates that the 

advertised fare be the full fare to be paid 

by the customer. Any practice of 

excluding from advertised fares extra 

‘‘fees’’ charged to customers that 

purchase tickets over the telephone 

through airline reservation centers, or at 

airport or city ticket counters, therefore, 

would violate 14 CFR 399.84, and 

constitute an unfair and deceptive trade 

practice and an unfair method of 

competition in violation of 49 U.S.C. 

41712.

In order to avoid enforcement action, 

carriers and their agents who charge 

more for tickets not purchased over the 

Internet (e.g. by telephone or at ticket 

offices) must prominently disclose to 

customers that specific fares advertised 

are available only for tickets purchased 

via the Internet. In addition, we believe 

that 49 U.S.C. 41712 and 14 CFR 399.84 

require carriers to state in such 

advertising that tickets cost more than 

the advertised price if purchased over 

the telephone or at an airport or city 

ticket office. Moreover, we believe it 

would be informative and beneficial for 

consumers if carriers also state the 

amount of the increased price in the 

advertisements, for example, by stating 

that tickets cost $5 more if purchased by 

telephone or at an airport or city ticket 

office. However, this increase in price 

may not be characterized as a carrierimposed ‘‘fee’’ lest the advertisement 

run afoul of the full fare advertising 

rule.2 Accordingly, the Aviation 

Enforcement Office will pursue 

enforcement action with regard to the 

advertisements in question if the 

increased fare is merely described in 

terms of a service, processing, 

administrative, ticketing center, call 

center, or similar carrier-imposed ‘‘fee.’’

Carriers, however, may use the 

aforementioned ‘‘fee’’ terms when 

describing the additional charge for 

telephone and/or ticket counter 

purchases in contexts that do not list 

specific fares and are thus not subject to 

14 CFR 399.84. Carriers may disclose 

such charges and refer to them as 

‘‘fees,’’ for example, in an audio 

introduction on an airline telephone 

reservation system, stating that tickets 

purchased over the telephone via the 

airline telephone reservation system, 

and/or at airline ticket counters, are 

subject to an additional carrier-imposed 

‘‘fee,’’ so long as the total fares 

eventually quoted to consumers include 

the ‘‘fee.’’ 

A second topic we wish to address 

relates to ‘‘government-approved 

surcharges.’’ In the past, we have not 

pursued enforcement action against 

carriers that listed in fare 

advertisements ‘‘government-imposed 

and government-approved’’ surcharges 

separately from the base fare quotations, 

so long as the existence of these

Federal Register / Vol. 69, No. 219 / Monday, November 15, 2004 / Notices 65677

3 In open-skies and other markets governed by 

bilateral agreements containing double-disapproval 

pricing articles, the Department has exempted 

carriers from fare filing. See 14 CFR part 293. See 

also, Letter from Paul L. Gretch, Director of 

International Aviation, to air carriers dated October 

14, 2004, which was distributed electronically by 

ATPCO to its members.

surcharges and their amounts were 

stated elsewhere in the advertisement. 

The ‘‘government-approved’’ surcharges 

were limited to security surcharges 

approved in the mid-1980’s that affected 

foreign air transportation only and were 

approved by both the foreign 

government involved and the U.S. 

government. Recently, tariff regulation, 

owing to expanded open-skies 

agreements and other factors, has been 

revised to the extent that there is no 

longer a consistent practice of joint 

approvals of surcharges, in many 

instances resulting in the filing of tariffs 

that may include surcharges that are 

approved by only one government. In 

addition, the desire of carriers to pass 

on the higher costs of certain expenses 

discretely, such as insurance and fuel, 

has led to such expenses being filed 

separately from the ‘‘base’’ fare in tariffs, 

a situation that the Department cannot 

effectively monitor.3 In view of these 

developments, the Enforcement Office 

will no longer allow the separate listing 

of ‘‘government-approved’’ surcharges 

in fare advertising. We will consider the 

separate listing of such charges in fare 

advertisements an unfair and deceptive 

trade practice and unfair method of 

competition in violation of 14 CFR 

399.84 and 49 U.S.C. 41712 and will 

pursue enforcement action where such 

violations are found. With respect to 

‘‘government-imposed’’ surcharges, for 

example PFCs and foreign airport 

charges, however, our policy remains 

that such charges may be omitted from 

the fare quotations provided that they 

are not ad valorem in nature, that they 

are collected on a per-passenger basis, 

and that their existence and amount are 

clearly indicated in the advertisement 

so that the consumer can determine the 

full fare to be paid.

Questions concerning this notice or 

the applicability of the Department’s 

fare advertising rules may be addressed 

to the Office of Aviation Enforcement 

and Proceedings.

Dated: November 5, 2004. 

Samuel Podberesky, 

Assistant General Counsel for Aviation 

Enforcement and Proceedings.

An electronic version of this 

document is available on the World 

Wide Web at http://dms.dot.gov/reports

and http://airconsumer.ost.dot.gov/

rules/index.htm.

[FR Doc. 04–25253 Filed 11–12–04; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 4910–62–P

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION

Federal Aviation Administration 

[Summary Notice No. PE–2004–79] 

Petitions for Exemption; Summary of 

Petitions Received

AGENCY: Federal Aviation 

Administration (FAA), DOT.

ACTION: Notice of petition for exemption 

received. 

SUMMARY: Pursuant to FAA’s rulemaking 

provisions governing the application, 

processing, and disposition of petitions 

for exemption, part 11 of Title 14, Code 

of Federal Regulations (14 CFR), this 

notice contains a summary of certain 

petitions seeking relief from specified 

requirements of 14 CFR. The purpose of 

this notice is to improve the public’s 

awareness of, and participation in, this 

aspect of FAA’s regulatory activities. 

Neither publication of this notice nor 

the inclusion or omission of information 

in the summary is intended to affect the 

legal status of any petition or its final 

disposition.

DATES: Comments on petitions received 

must identify the petition docket 

number involved and must be received 

on or before December 6, 2004.

ADDRESSES: You may submit comments 

identified by DOT DMS Docket Number 

FAA–2004–18751 by any of the 

following methods: 

• Web Site: http://dms.dot.gov.

Follow the instructions for submitting 

comments on the DOT electronic docket 

site. 

• Fax: 1–202–493–2251. 

• Mail: Docket Management Facility; 

U.S. Department of Transportation, 400 

Seventh Street, SW., Nassif Building, 

Room PL–401, Washington, DC 20590–

0001. 

• Hand Delivery: Room PL–401 on 

the plaza level of the Nassif Building, 

400 Seventh Street, SW., Washington, 

DC, between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday 

through Friday, except Federal holidays. 

Docket: For access to the docket to 

read background documents or 

comments received, go to http://

dms.dot.gov at any time or to Room PL–

401 on the plaza level of the Nassif 

Building, 400 Seventh Street, SW., 

Washington, DC, between 9 a.m. and 5 

p.m., Monday through Friday, except 

Federal holidays.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: John 

Linsenmeyer (202) 267–5174 or Susan 

Lender (202) 267–8029, Office of 

Rulemaking (ARM–1), Federal Aviation 

Administration, 800 Independence 

Avenue, SW., Washington, DC 20591. 

This notice is published pursuant to 

14 CFR 11.85 and 11.91.

Issued in Washington, DC, on November 5, 

2004. 

Anthony F. Fazio, 

Director, Office of Rulemaking.

Petitions for Exemption 

Docket No.: FAA–2004–18751. 

Petitioner: Vaughn College of 

Aeronautics & Technology. 

Sections of 14 CFR Affected: 14 CFR 

147, Appendix C 

Description of Relief Sought: To allow 

the petitioner to teach certain welding, 

soldering, and brazing curriculum in the 

Airframe Structures section of 

Appendix C to Teaching level 1 instead 

of Teaching level 2.

[FR Doc. 04–25322 Filed 11–12–04; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 4910–13–P

DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY

Fiscal Service 

Surety Companies Acceptable on 

Federal Bonds; Roche Surety and 

Casualty Company, Inc.

AGENCY: Financial Management Service, 

Fiscal Service, Department of the 

Treasury.

ACTION: Notice.

SUMMARY: This is Supplement No. 3 to 

the Treasury Department Circular 570; 

2004 Revision, published July 1, 2004, 

at 69 FR 40224.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:

Surety Bond Branch at (202) 874–1033.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: A 

Certificate of Authority as an acceptable 

surety on Federal bonds is hereby 

issued to the following Company under 

31 U.S.C. 9304 to 9308. Federal bondapproving officers should annotate their 

reference copies of the Treasury Circular 

570, 2004 Revision, on page 40254 to 

reflect this addition. 

Company Name: Roche Surety and 

Casualty Company, Inc. 

Business Address: 1910 Orient Road, 

Tampa, Florida 33619. 

Phone: (813) 623–5042. 

UNDERWRITING LIMITATION b/: 

$450,000. 

Surety Licenses c/: AR, FL, GA, IN, 

KS, LA, MD, MO, NE, NV, NJ, OK, SC, 

TN, TX. Incorporated in: Florida. 

Certificates of Authority expire on 

June 30 each year, unless revoked prior