UNITED 

Nene Foxhall 

Executive Vice President 

Communications and Government Affairs 

September 10, 2013 

Bill Baroni 

Deputy Executive Director 

Port Authority of New York and New Jersey 

225 Park Avenue South 

151

h Floor 

New York, NY 10003 

Dear Bill, 

Thanks for your time on Thursday. I look forward to following up on our discussion 

about the significant cost impact to United and the other airlines ofthe Port Authority's 

plans to implement the revised Airport Rescue and Firefightingoperation (ARFF). 

As I said, United, of course, supports safe and compliant operations at Port Authority 

airports, but the cost estimate for the ARFF is, in a word, stunning. So, we appreciate 

the staff taking time to meet with us Thursday to help us better understand the 

components of that increase. As you heard from him, Jeff is looking for detail behind 

those increased cost estimates. We would, therefore, like to take you up on your offer 

to provide us the written summaries from which the staff briefed us on the new 

headcount and processes that drive the estimated $63 million annual cost increase, of 

which we estimate $25 million annually would be charged to United. 

While understanding your view that this cost increase could have been even greater, I 

hope that you appreciate that is still an enormous increase with unreasonable and 

disproportionate impact on United. That disproportionate impact is due primarily to the 

substantial competitive disadvantage in which the Newark Airport rate methodology 

places the carriers serving Newark versus those serving New York airports. 

As we showed you, we estimate that Newark would be burdened with 43 percent of the 

costs of the ARFF, and JFK 29 percent, even though Newark had the fewest claimed 

instances of training violations and JFK the most of any of the Port Authority airports. 

While we don't have all of the detail concerning the costs that your team does, we 

estimate Delta's share of the cost increase related to the ARFF to be $8 million; 

American's $6 million and JetBiue's $4 million, in sharp contrast to the $25 million for 

United. 

It would be helpful to further explore the actions we understand that the Port Authority is 

taking as part of its plans to implement the ARFF, including: 

233 South Wacker Drive, HDQPO, Chicago, ll 60606 A STAR ALLIANCE MEMBER ·~. 
• Hiring 280 dedicated firefighters for duties now undertaken by Port Authority 

police; 

• Maintaining the same number of police officers who are providing those services; 

and 

• Providing recurrent training to all of the above for both firefighting and police 

duties regardless of whether an officer will be "dedicated" to either firefighting or 

police duties to enable cross-utilization of all police officers. 

As we stated when we were discussing industry best practices on Thursday, none of 

our other major hub airports provide cross training of police and firefighting personnel in 

this manner. Absent a clear understanding of the Port Authority's obligation to so 

respond, this appears to be unreasonable and far beyond industry best practice and 

what the ARFF Settlement with the FAA calls for. So, we would appreciate a better 

understanding of any such obligations. 

Again, thank you for entertaining our questions and working to help us address our 

concerns. We look forward to reviewing the written cost summaries, head count, 

processes and other factors driving the cost increase, which we hope you will provide at 

your earliest convenience. I will be in touch soon. 

Sincerely, 

Cc: David Samson, Chairman, Board of Commissioners 

Pat Foye, Executive Director 

233 South Wacker Drive,HDQPO, Chicago, IL 60606