Federal Register / Vol. 82, No. 175 / Tuesday, September 12, 2017 / Notices 42877 

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION 

Office of the Secretary 

[OST Docket No. DOT–OST–2011–0170] 

Notice of Submission of Proposed 

Information Collection to OMB Agency 

Request for Renewal of a Previously 

Approved Collection: Disclosure of 

Code-Sharing Arrangements and 

Long-Term Wet Leases 

AGENCY: Office of the Secretary, 

Department of Transportation. 

ACTION: Notice and request for 

comments. 

SUMMARY: In accordance with the 

Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 this 

notice announces the Department of 

Transportation’s (Department) intention 

to reinstate an Office of Management 

and Budget (OMB) control number as 

related to the Disclosure of CodeSharing Arrangements and Long-Term 

Wet Leases. The growth in the use of 

code-sharing, wet-leasing, and similar 

marketing tools, particularly in 

international air transportation, led the 

Department on March 15, 1999, to adopt 

specific regulations requiring the 

disclosure of code-sharing arrangements 

and long-term wet leases by air carriers 

(U.S. and foreign) and ticket agents via 

oral, written, and internet 

communications. In a recent final rule 

published in the Federal Register on 

November 3, 2016, titled ‘‘Enhancing 

Airline Passenger Protections’’, the 

Department, among other things, 

amended the code-share disclosure 

regulation to require that carriers and 

ticket agents must disclose any codeshare arrangements on their Web sites, 

including mobile Web sites and 

applications; clarify the format in which 

that information must be displayed; and 

specify that verbal code-share 

disclosures should be made the first 

time a flight involving a code-share 

arrangement is offered to consumers or 

the first time a consumer inquiries about 

such a flight whether by telephone or in 

person conversations. 

DATES: Written comments should be 

submitted by November 13, 2017. 

ADDRESSES: You may submit comments 

(identified by DOT Docket Number 

OST–2011–0170) through one of the 

following methods: 

• Federal eRulemaking Portal: http:// 

www.regulations.gov. Follow the online 

instructions for submitting comments. 

• Hand Delivery: U.S. Department of 

Transportation, West Building Ground 

Floor, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE., 

Room W12–140, Washington, DC 20590, 

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

through Friday, except on Federal 

Holidays. The telephone number is 202– 

366–9329. 

• Mail: Docket Management Facility; 

U.S. Department of Transportation, 1200 

New Jersey Avenue SE., West Building, 

Room W12–140, Washington, DC 20590. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: 

Daeleen Chesley, (202) 366–6792, 

Daeleen.Chesley@dot.gov, Office of the 

Assistant General Counsel for Aviation 

Enforcement and Proceedings (C–70), 

U.S. Department of Transportation, 1200 

New Jersey Avenue SE., Washington, 

DC 20590. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 

OMB Control Number: 2105–0537. 

Title: Disclosure of Code-Sharing 

Arrangements and Long-Term Wet 

Leases. 

Abstract: Code-sharing is the name 

given to a common airline industry 

marketing practice where, by mutual 

agreement between cooperating carriers, 

at least one of the airline designator 

codes used on a flight is different from 

that of the airline operating the aircraft. 

In one version of code-sharing, two or 

more airlines each use their own 

designator codes on the same aircraft 

operation. Although only one airline 

operates the flight, each airline in a 

code-sharing arrangement may hold out, 

market, and sell the flight as its own in 

published schedules. Code-sharing also 

refers to other arrangements, such as 

when a code on a passenger’s ticket is 

not that of the operator of the flight, but 

where the operator does not hold out 

the service in its own name. Such codesharing arrangements are common 

between commuter air carriers and their 

larger affiliates. In a wet lease situation, 

a leasing arrangement is made whereby 

the lessor provides both an aircraft and 

crew to a lessee dedicated to a certain 

route under either an agreement that 

lasts more than 60 days or under a series 

of such lease agreements that amount to 

a continuing arrangement lasting more 

than 60 days. 

Although code-sharing and wet-lease 

arrangements can offer significant 

consumer benefits, they can also be 

misleading unless consumers know the 

identity of the airline operating the 

flight. The growth in the use of codesharing and wet-leasing, particularly in 

international air transportation, led the 

Department to adopt specific regulations 

requiring the disclosure of code-sharing 

arrangements and long-term wet leases 

on March 15, 1999 (14 CFR part 257). 

More specifically, the rule requires 

carriers to provide information about 

their code-share relationships in written 

or electronic schedule information 

provided by carriers to the public (e.g., 

the Official Airline Guide/OAG). The 

rule also requires carriers and ticket 

agents to disclose code-share 

information in written notice at the time 

of a ticket purchase. Further, the 

regulation requires those entities to tell 

prospective consumers in all oral 

communications that the transporting 

airline is not the airline whose 

designator code will appear on travel 

documents and to identify the 

transporting airline by its corporate 

name and any other name under which 

that service is held out to the public. 

In 2010, to further enhance these 

consumer protections, Congress enacted 

by Public Law 111–216, sec. 210 

(August 1, 2010), which was codified as 

49 U.S.C. 41712(c). Among other things, 

the statute requires ticket agents and air 

carriers (U.S. and foreign) to disclose in 

oral communication or in written or 

electronic communications (including 

on the internet), prior to the purchase of 

a ticket, the name of the air carrier 

providing the air transportation and, if 

the flight has more than one segment, 

the name of each air carrier providing 

the air transportation for each flight 

segment. The statute also requires ticket 

agents and air carriers (U.S. and foreign) 

that sell tickets on an Internet Web site 

to disclose the required information on 

the first display of their Web site 

following a consumer’s search of a 

requested itinerary in a format that is 

easily visible. 

In a recent final rule, Enhancing 

Airline Passenger Protections III (81 FR 

76800, November 3, 2016), the 

Department clarified its code-share 

disclosure regulation to ensure that 

carriers and ticket agents disclose codeshare arrangements in schedules, 

advertisements, and communications 

with consumers. The rule amended the 

Department’s code-share disclosure 

regulation to codify the statutory 

requirement that carriers and ticket 

agents must in a format that is easily 

visible to a viewer disclose any codeshare arrangements on the first display 

of the Web site following itinerary 

search results; clarify that the 

requirement for code-share disclosures 

in flight itinerary search results and 

flight schedule displays includes 

information provided by airlines via 

mobile Web sites and applications; 

clarify the format in which that 

information must be displayed; and 

specify that verbal code-share 

disclosures should be made the first 

time a flight involving a code-share 

arrangement is offered to consumers or 

inquired about by consumers during 

telephone or in person conversations. 

As most of these provisions are 

implementing the statutory requirement 


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42878 Federal Register / Vol. 82, No. 175 / Tuesday, September 12, 2017 / Notices 

1The regulated entities that have a Web site 

should already have the required information 

programmed in their systems and that information 

should already appear on their Web sites. Thus, the 

incremental costs to add the information to mobile 

Web sites and applications should be small. To the 

extent there are any costs, they could be minimized 

if any necessary changes were incorporated at the 

same time as another upgrade. 

2The costs are minimal if this change is 

incorporated into agent curricula during the same 

time as other updates and/or sent in an update 

bulletin via the carrier’s/travel agent’s intranet 

system. 

3Per BTS data, there were 932 million 

enplanements in 2016 (34% of these flights involve 

a one-way ticket and 66% involve round-trip 

travel). It is estimated that 20% of these travelers 

make a call to an airline or travel agent to book a 

ticket or obtain information about a flight and each 

traveler will only need to obtain the information 

once per travel itinerary. Of those travel itineraries, 

25% to 39% involve a code-share flight in which 

an agent must reveal that information. 

4Large U.S. carriers must provide BTS with 

information for the ‘‘Airline Passenger and 

Destination Survey.’’ The reported information 

must include the name of the marketing carrier, as 

well as the operating carrier of the flight (which 

may be a regional or foreign carrier). 

5For example, many ‘‘reporting’’ carriers (e.g., 

United Airlines) disclose on their Web sites on-time 

performance information for their domestic codeshare flights. 

enacted in 2010, carriers and ticket 

agents should already be complying 

with most of the requirements.1 The 

aspect of the provision which is new is 

the specification of when during a 

telephone or in-person booking process 

a carrier or ticket agent must disclose 

the code-share information, which may 

result in additional compliance costs for 

some carriers and ticket agents. Those 

additional costs would be borne by 

those carriers and ticket agents that 

currently do not present code-share 

information at the first mention of a 

flight during a reservation call or inperson booking. As such, these carriers 

and ticket agents may have slightly 

longer reservation calls and longer inperson bookings. However, the 

disclosure at a point during the 

information gathering and decisionmaking process was already required so 

the additional time, if any, would be 

minimal. 

In addition to costs for additional 

agent time during some calls and inperson bookings, some respondents may 

have a slight increase in their training 

costs, as they modify their trainings to 

note that code-share information must 

be shared when the flight is first 

presented to the consumer.2 These 

additional training costs are likely to be 

incurred only by those respondents 

which do not already present code-share 

information at the first mention of a 

flight. 

A Federal agency generally cannot 

conduct or sponsor a collection of 

information, and the public is generally 

not required to respond to an 

information collection, unless it is 

approved by the OMB under the PRA 

and displays a currently valid OMB 

Control Number. In addition, 

notwithstanding any other provisions of 

law, no person shall generally be subject 

to penalty for failing to comply with a 

collection of information if the 

collection of information does not 

display a valid OMB Control Number. 

See 5 CFR 1320.5(a) and 1320.6. 

This notice addresses the information 

collection requirements set forth in the 

Department’s regulation requiring 

disclosure of code-share and wet-leases, 

14 CFR 257. The reinstated OMB control 

number will be applicable to all the 

provisions set forth in this notice. The 

title, a description of the respondents, 

and an estimate of the annual 

recordkeeping and periodic reporting 

burden are set forth below: 

Title: Disclosure of Code-Sharing 

Arrangements and Long Term Wet 

Leases in Flight Itineraries and 

Schedules, Oral Communications with 

Prospective Consumers, Ticket 

Confirmations, and Advertisements. 

Respondents: All U.S. air carriers, 

foreign air carriers, Global Distribution 

Systems (GDSs, formerly known as 

computer reservations systems), and 

travel agents doing business in the 

United States. 

Number of Respondents: 5,031 

(estimated 48 marketing carriers and 

4,983 travel agents/GDSs). 

Frequency: 

For transactions involving oral 

communications: 15 seconds per call (to 

reveal the code-share information) and 

an average of 1.5 calls per trip (a total 

of 22.5 seconds per respondent) for the 

approximately 25% to 39% (using 2016 

Bureau of Transportation Statistic’s 

((BTS)) data) of itineraries that involve 

personal contact/phone call and a codeshare itinerary.3

For transactions involving written and 

internet disclosure: The burden should 

be minimal to non-existent as many 

airlines are already required to submit 

certain code-share related information 

to BTS 4 and/or already have code-share 

information available on their Web 

sites.5 In addition, the marketing 

airlines currently provide information 

about their code-share flights to the 

GDSs who, in turn, provide that 

information to travel agents. As the 

code-share information is integrated 

into the data provided by the airlines to 

GDSs and travel agents, the code-share 

information is automatically displayed 

on the internet/computer, as well as on 

a printed version of an itinerary/ticket. 

Total Annual Burden: Annual 

reporting burden for this data collection 

is estimated at 195,138 to 304,415- 

hours for all travel agents and airline 

ticket agents who have personal contact 

with a consumer. Most of this data 

collection is accomplished through 

travelers using highly automated 

computerized systems to make their air 

travel reservation(s) and the data is 

already available on the regulated 

entities Web sites and/or is programmed 

into their database/reservation systems. 

Public Comments Invited: You are 

asked to comment on any aspect of this 

information collection, including (a) 

whether the proposed collection of 

information is necessary for the 

Department’s performance; (b) the 

accuracy of the estimated burden; (c) 

ways for the Department to enhance the 

quality, utility, and clarity of the 

information collection; and (d) ways 

that the burden could be minimized 

without reducing the quality of the 

collected information. 

Authority: The Paperwork Reduction Act 

of 1995; 44 U.S.C. Chapter 35, as amended; 

and 49 CFR 1:48. 

Issued in Washington, DC, on August 28, 

2017. 

Blane A. Workie, 

Assistant General Counsel for Aviation 

Enforcement and Proceedings. 

[FR Doc. 2017–18828 Filed 9–11–17; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 4910–9X–P 

DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY 

Office of Foreign Assets Control 

Notice of OFAC Sanctions Actions 

AGENCY: Office of Foreign Assets 

Control, Treasury. 

ACTION: Notice. 

SUMMARY: The Department of the 

Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets 

Control (OFAC) is publishing the names 

of one or more persons that have been 

placed on OFAC’s Specially Designated 

Nationals and Blocked Persons List 

based on OFAC’s determination that one 

or more applicable legal criteria were 

satisfied. All property and interests in 

property subject to U.S. jurisdiction of 

these persons are blocked, and U.S. 

persons are generally prohibited from 

engaging in transactions with them. 

DATES: See SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION

section. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: 

OFAC: Associate Director for Global 

Targeting, tel.: 202–622–2420, Assistant 


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