(6)

The main features of the PSOs published on 24 March and 21 April 2006 are as follows: — the two routes Alghero–Rome and Alghero–Milan (together) and the two routes Olbia–Rome and Olbia–Milan (together) constitute a single package which must be accepted in their entirety and as a whole by the carriers concerned without any compensation of any kind or origin. The routes Cagliari–Rome and Cagliari–Milan, on the other hand, must be accepted individually, in their entirety and as a whole by the carriers concerned without any compensation of any kind or origin, — each of the ten routes published in the notice of 21 April 2006 and the PSOs imposed upon them must be accepted individually in their entirety and as a whole by the carrier concerned, — the carrier accepting to take on these obligations must provide a service over a period of 36 consecutive months and may not interrupt the service unless it provides notice of at least six months to ENAC (the Italian national civil aviation body) and to the Autonomous Region of Sardinia, — the carrier (or main carrier) taking on these obligations must provide a performance security for the purpose of guaranteeing the correct performance and continuation of the service, the amount of which must be equal to at least 5 % of the total turnover of scheduled air services for all the connections concerned, evaluated by ENAC. The security is payable to ENAC, which will use it to ensure the continuation of the services concerned in the event of unjustified abandonment, and consists of a first request bank surety (50 %) and an insurance surety (for the remaining 50 %), — to avoid the overcapacity which would result if several carriers were to accept a route subject to the obligations, considering the infrastructure limitations and conditions of the airports involved, ENAC, at the behest of the Autonomous Region of Sardinia, has the task of acting in the public interest to adjust the accepting carriers’ operating programmes so as to ensure that they are completely in line with the mobility objectives of the obligations imposed. The purpose of this should be to redistribute routes and frequencies fairly between the accepting carriers on the basis of the volumes of traffic on the routes (or packages of routes) in question for each of them over the previous two years, — the minimum frequency, time slots and capacity to be provided for each route are laid down in point 2 ‘Detail of the public service obligations’ of the notices of 24 March and 21 April 2006, — the minimum capacity of the aircraft used is set out in point 3 ‘Type of aircraft used for each route’ of the notices, — the fare structure for all the routes concerned is given under point 4 on ‘Fares’. In particular, regarding reduced fares, point 4.8 of both notices state that carriers operating the routes concerned are legally bound to apply the reduced fares (specified under point 4 ‘Fares’) at least to people born in Sardinia, even if they are not resident there, — in accordance with Decree No 35, sent to the Commission on 29 December 2005 and published in the Italian Official Gazette on 11 January 2006, the PSOs should apply to the routes concerned from 31 March 2006 to 30 March 2009. However, on 28 February 2006, the Italian authorities informed the Commission of the adoption on 23 February 2006 of a decree (Permanent Representation letter with the reference No 2321) amending these dates to 2 May 2006 and 1 May 2009. These dates were published on 24 March 2006 in the Official Journal of the European Union, — in accordance with Decree No 36, sent to the Commission on 29 December 2005, published in the Italian Official Gazette on 11 January 2006 and published in the Official Journal of the European Union on 21 April 2006, the Italian Republic stated that the start and end of the validity period for the PSOs on the routes concerned would be set at a later date. Therefore the publication in the Official Journal of the European Union did not contain any definitive start and end dates, — carriers intending to accept the public service obligations must submit a formal acceptance letter to the competent Italian authority within 30 days of publication of the notice in the Official Journal of the European Union.