BEFORE THE

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Application of

CSI AVIATION SERVICES, INC.

for an emergency exemption pursuant to 49 

U.S.C. § 40109 and 14 C.F.R. § 302.11 to 

continue to perform under General Services 

Administration Contract GS-33F-0025V, SIN 

599-5, Air Charter Services—Brokers

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Docket OST-2009-0311

COMMENTS OF THE AIR CHARTER ASSOCIATION OF NORTH AMERICA TO 

SUBMISSION OF THE GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION

Communications with respect to this document should be sent to:

Scott Bickford, Chairman

David McCown, President

Jonathan Tasler, Vice President

Air Charter Association of North America

 c/o Air Planning, LLC

2 Main Street

Salem, New Hampshire 03079

(603) 890-0044

sbickford@flyacana.org

jtasler@flyacana.org

dmccown@flyacana.org

Dated: March 5, 2010
BEFORE THE

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Application of

CSI AVIATION SERVICES, INC.

for an emergency exemption pursuant to 49 

U.S.C. § 40109 and 14 C.F.R. § 302.11 to

continue to perform under General Services 

Administration Contract GS-33F-0025V, SIN 

599-5, Air Charter Services—Brokers

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Docket OST-2009-0311

COMMENTS OF THE AIR CHARTER ASSOCIATION OF NORTH AMERICA TO 

SUBMISSION OF THE GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION

In accordance with the Department’s March 3, 2010 Notice, the Air Charter Association 

of North America (ACANA) respectfully submits these comments in response to the March 1, 

2010, letter from the General Services Administration (GSA) to the Department of 

Transportation (DOT). 

As an independent agency solely dedicated to procuring goods and services for the 

Federal Government (Government), GSA is uniquely positioned to assess the value of air charter 

brokerage services to the Government. GSA’s specialized expertise assisting Federal purchasers 

of air charter services led to the issuance of a particular Special Item Number (SIN) for brokers, 

SIN 599-5, Travel Services Solutions; Air Charter Services – Brokers, in the first place. As GSA 

notes, the agency “has an experienced cadre of air transportation professionals who are familiar 

with both the ‘air charter services – owner-operated’ model,” on the one hand, “and ‘air charter 

services—brokers’ business model[],” on the other hand. GSA Letter at 2. 
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GSA also correctly observes that owner operated air charter services may not always be 

capable of meeting the Government’s time sensitive missions. Government charters are often 

arranged with little advance notice and often involve small aircraft because the underlying 

missions call for transportation of a limited number of passengers, often to airports that cannot be 

served by large jets offered under SIN 599-4, Air Charter Services- Owner Operated.

DOT is intimately aware that the need for air charter brokers can be heightened by 

unforeseen events. As DOT stated when recently issuing and then extending a limited 

exemption to charter brokers listed on SIN 599-5 from the licensing requirement of 49 U.S.C. § 

41101 in response to the February 2010 disaster in Haiti, brokers “continue to be needed on an 

immediate basis to expedite the earthquake relief efforts of the U.S. Government.” Order 2010-

2-10 (Feb. 12, 2010), at 2. Although DOT’s exemption was issued under exigent circumstances, 

the issuance and renewal of these exemptions underscore the critical and unique role that air 

charter brokers play in helping the Government respond to emergencies.

Importantly, however, the Government’s need for broker services does not simply go 

away once emergencies have subsided. Every day there is a continuing need for brokers to 

support critical Government missions, ranging from law enforcement operations (including 

international extraditions) to medical flights and the transport of alien detainees and prisoners.

These missions are also not limited to flights within the United States, and may involve sensitive 

Government missions in virtually any part of the globe. For all of these flights, however, the 

Government needs to know that brokers are available on little or no advance notice to arrange the 

required flights.

ACANA also supports GSA’s position that the Government, when procuring air 

transportation, knows full well the difference between obtaining air transportation directly from 
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aircraft operators and utilizing the services provided by charter brokers. Indeed, and as ACANA 

remarked in its own reply comments previously filed in this docket, 1

Furthermore, ACANA strongly agrees with the GSA that “[a]cquisition by the Federal 

Government . . . is distinct in several ways from acquisitions in the private sector and does not 

present the consumer protection related concerns typically at issue in the private sector.” GSA 

Letter at 1. In this regard, ACANA firmly believes that the consumer protection concerns 

identified by the DOT in previous enforcement actions against air charter brokers are largely 

absent in this case.

a Government purchaser 

selecting a vendor from SIN 599-5 will understand that it can only be broker services that it is

purchasing.

Moreover, apart from DOT’s own enforcement mechanisms, the Government has at its 

disposal considerable coercive power to prevent nonperformance and fraud by its broker 

contractors. As the GSA notes, this power includes: suspension or debarment from all Federal 

contracting opportunities pursuant to 48 C.F.R. Subpart 9.4; the prohibition against advance 

payments prior to performance under the 31 U.S.C. § 3324; and, most importantly, the ability to 

seek remedies in the form of criminal sanctions under 18 U.S.C. § 287 and treble civil damages 

under 31 U.S.C. § 3729-3733. As the GSA observes, “[t]aken together, these various civil and 

criminal statutes and implementing regulations protect the Federal Government in a manner not 

available to the private sector.” GSA Letter at 2. 

ACANA hopes that DOT will carefully consider GSA’s specialized experience in this 

matter, and heed GSA’s measured call to allow air charter brokers to continue performing under 

their GSA contracts, as well as contracts that brokers may have with other Government agencies. 

In this regard, and as ACANA has previously proposed, the Department should forthwith: (1) 

 1 Reply of ACANA in Docket DOT-OST-2009-0311 (Dec. 22, 2009), at 9.
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issue a blanket exemption allowing air charter brokers to continue to arrange air transportation 

on behalf of the Government under SIN 599-5,2

Finally, ACANA and its members would welcome the opportunity to meet with DOT to 

discuss Government procurement of air charter brokerage services once DOT has disposed of the 

matter now pending in this docket, but before a formal rulemaking proceeding (if any) is 

instituted.

or, alternatively: (2) institute an expedited 

rulemaking to define a role for brokers as indirect air carriers providing brokerage services to the 

Government under SIN 599-5. In either event, it is imperative that DOT act as soon as possible 

before the April 15, 2010 cease and desist deadline it has imposed on each of the brokers listed 

on SIN 599-5, or extend that deadline pending a final resolution of the matter.

 2 In this regard, the DOT has stated that “it is our understanding that air charter brokers, under current procurement 

rules, may not act as an agent of the U.S.-Government for purposes of procuring air transportation for U.S. 

Government charterers . . .” Order 2010-2-10, at 2, fn. 3. As a consequence, the DOT believed it was necessary 

to issue exemptions to brokers for arranging air transportation in connection with Federal relief efforts in Haiti. 

Therefore, DOT already has a useful foundation upon which it can base future exemptions for the continuation of 

broker services under SIN 599-5.
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Respectfully Submitted,

AIR CHARTER ASSOCIATION OF NORTH 

AMERICA

By_______________________________________

Scott Bickford, Chairman

David McCown, President

Jonathan Tasler, Vice President

Dated: March 5, 2010
CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE

I hereby certify that on this, the 5th of March 2010, a copy of the foregoing Comments of the

Charter Association of North America was served by email on the parties named below:

agoerlich@ggh-airlaw.com

carl.smith@mcgovernandsmith.com

dhernandez@vedderprice.com

gcirillo@wileyrein.com

jamestello@earthlink.net

john.fredericksen@suncountry.com

markrobinson@rubloffusa.com

matwood@sherblackwell.com

pmccluskey@flyacana.org

pmurphy@lopmurphy.com

rbinns@glah.com

rpriddy@naca.cc

tspulak@kslaw.com

vsmith@ggh-airlaw.com

thuy.cooper@dot.gov

george.wellington@dot.gov

jonathan.dols@dot.gov

dayton.lehman@dot.gov

samuel.podberesky@dot.gov

mnichols@nbaa.org

virginia.grebasch@gsa.gov

____________________________

Scott Bickford