Opinion ID: 376827
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The March Determination as to Essential Air Transportation

Text: 35 New Haven's second substantive claim is that the Board should have blocked these suspensions in March 1979 under § 419(a)(10) because they deprived New Haven of essential air transportation. The Board contends that the March order is now moot and was, in any event, correct.
36 The Board argues that its interim determination of essential air transportation under 419(a)(10) has been superseded by the final determination of essential air transportation under § 419(a)(2)(A), and that as a result, nothing turns on the correctness of the former order. We disagree. Since the Board's § 419(a)(2)(A) determination of essential air transportation for New Haven was made after the Eastern and Allegheny suspensions, we conclude that a successful challenge to the § 419(a)(10) determination (in the event that New Haven also prevails on its challenge to the § 419(a)(2)(A) determination) could result in a practical benefit to New Haven arising from the operation of other provisions of § 419(a) that would not be available from a successful challenge to the § 419(a)(2)(A) determination alone. 23 37 The relevant elements of the § 419(a) guaranteed essential air transportation program, designed to protect small communities from service reductions following the introduction of free competition to the airline industry, are as follows. The program applies to all points which a certificated carrier was serving or was authorized to serve on the date of enactment, October 24, 1978. § 419(a)(1). Within one year after enactment i. e., by October 24, 1979 the Board was required to determine what is essential air transportation for points, such as New Haven, which were being served by no more than one certificated carrier on the enactment date. § 419(a)(2)(A). During this one-year interim period, the Board, upon receiving notice of a carrier's intent to suspend service, was required to prohibit any service reduction which reasonably appears to deprive such point of essential air transportation, until the Board has completed (the § 419(a)(2)(A)) determination. § 419(a)(10). 24 As noted above, New Haven's substantive claim rests upon this last provision. 38 Once the Board has made its § 419(a)(2)(A) determination, other provisions governing service reductions may come into play. If a carrier wishes to effect a reduction or termination of service that will have the effect of reducing service below the level set by the Board as essential, the carrier must give 90 days' notice pursuant to § 419(a)(3)(A). 25 If by the end of the 90-day notice period the Board has not found another carrier to provide service at the level deemed essential, the Board must require the carrier that gave notice to continue serving the point for successive 30-day periods until the Board finds a substitute carrier. § 419(a)(6). While the carrier is being compelled to provide service beyond the notice period, the Board must compensate it for resulting losses, § 419(a)(7)(B), and shall continue to make every effort to secure a substitute carrier. § 419(a)(9). 39 Apart from these obligations which arise when the Board is notified of proposed service reductions, the Board is required, whenever it determines that essential air transportation will not be provided to a point without compensation, to seek and entertain applications to provide such service for compensation. § 419(a)(4). However, nothing in § 419(a) authorizes the Board to compel a carrier that is not serving a point to commence service to that point. 40 It is clear from the provisions of § 419(a), therefore, that assuming that the airlines' terminations would be found under § 419(a)(2)(A) to deprive New Haven of essential air transportation, New Haven has a very definite stake in obtaining a reversal of the § 419(a)(10) determination involved in the present case: such a reversal would invalidate the suspensions by Eastern and Allegheny, and require them to resume service; the carriers could very well file new notices of their intent to suspend service, but at that point the Board would be required, under § 419(a)(6), to search for a replacement carrier and to block the suspensions for successive 30-day periods until it found a replacement. 41 If, on the other hand, the Board's § 419(a)(10) determination were allowed to stand (or is bypassed as moot), Eastern and Allegheny would not have to resume service to New Haven. Then, even if their withdrawals were found, under § 419(a)(2)(A), to deprive New Haven of essential air transportation, the Board would be required merely to seek applicants to provide New Haven service for compensation, under § 419(a)(4). The Board could not compel any carrier to provide this service, and until a new carrier was found, New Haven would be without essential air transportation. 42 Since a reversal of the § 419(a)(10) determination could affect the level of service at New Haven, we find that New Haven's petition for review of the March order under § 419(a)(10) is not moot. 43
44 In challenging the Board's § 419(a)(10) determination, New Haven argues that the Board misanalyzed the issues and misconstrued the statute. We reject both contentions, and therefore uphold the Board's action. 45 New Haven first argues that the Board did not analyze the essential air transportation question as required by the statute. Relying on the language of § 419(f), 26 New Haven argues that the Board failed to consider whether the service offered by the commuter airlines would satisfy New Haven's needs for transportation to one or more communities of interest and would insure( ) access to the Nation's air transportation system at fair prices. It is true that the Board, in its order, did not specifically undertake to define New Haven's needs, or its communities of interest, or what would constitute fair prices. But the Board did explicitly find that the level of air service being provided at New Haven by Pilgrim reasonably appears to meet the essential air transportation requirements of New Haven, Order No. 79-3-98 at 5, and that Pilgrim's service is substantially above the legal minimum for essential air transportation defined in section 419(f)(1). Id. In our view, therefore, although the Board did not use the precise words of § 419(f), it made the finding required by § 419(a)(10) that the noticed terminations did not reasonably (appear) to deprive (New Haven) of essential air transportation. 27 46 New Haven also appears to be arguing that the Board's interpretation of essential air transportation is unduly narrow. It is clear that New Haven's view of what constitutes essential air transportation is substantially more expansive than that adopted by the Board. Thus, New Haven asserts that the Board should have investigated, in this proceeding, New Haven's needs for service to a number of midwestern cities to which New Haven has never had service. 28 The Board, on the other hand, concluded that the present service to New York and Boston was more than sufficient to meet the essential air transportation test. The Board's more modest view of essential air transportation seems more in line with Congressional expectations, see, e. g., 124 Cong.Rec. S5850 (daily ed. Apr. 19, 1978) (remarks of Sen. Cannon), and in any event is entitled to our deference. See C.A.B. v. Carefree Travel, Inc., 513 F.2d 375, 390 (2d Cir. 1975). However, there is no need for this Court precisely to delineate the scope of essential air transportation in this case. The only question before us is whether we should uphold the Board's determination that the instant suspensions did not reasonably appear  to deprive New Haven of essential air transportation. Congress committed this determination to the Board, in the first instance, and clearly contemplated that the Board would act quickly and informally, on the basis of its expertise; accordingly, judicial review of the Board's determination must be a limited one. Cf. S.E.C. v. New England Elec. System, 390 U.S. 207, 211, 88 S.Ct. 916, 920, 19 L.Ed.2d 1042 (1968). It is sufficient to conclude, as we do, that the Board did not act in an arbitrary or capricious manner, 29 Rombough v. F.A.A., 594 F.2d 893, 896-97 (2d Cir. 1979); Tiger Int'l, Inc. v. C.A.B., 554 F.2d 926, 935-37 (9th Cir. 1977), cert. denied, 434 U.S. 975, 98 S.Ct. 532, 54 L.Ed.2d 467 (1978), in determining that these suspensions did not reasonably appear to deprive New Haven of essential air transportation. 47 The petition is denied.