Opinion ID: 743573
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Corporate aircraft and air taxis.

Text: 49 The Pilots next assert that the FAA has applied the Age 60 Rule arbitrarily without regard for either the type of aircraft being flown or the type of service being provided. Thus, the Rule applies to cargo carriers, where no passengers are at risk, but not to corporate aircraft and air taxis, where passengers are at risk. The Pilots claim that this is utterly irrational. 50 The FAA responds that the distinction between common carriers of passengers and cargo, which are subject to the Age 60 Rule, and private carriers of passengers and cargo, which are not, is found in the governing statute. The Congress directed the FAA to consider the differences between air transportation, defined as the transportation of passengers or property by a common carrier, 49 U.S.C. §§ 40102(a)(5), (24), & (25), and other air commerce. See 49 U.S.C. § 44701(d)(1)(B). The Congress also specifically required the FAA to consider the duty of air carriers, defined elsewhere as common carriers, 49 U.S.C. §§ 40102(a)(2), (5), (24), & (25), to provide service with the highest possible degree of safety in the public interest. See 49 U.S.C. § 44701(d)(1)(A). Accordingly, the agency considers it appropriate to regulate common carriers more stringently than it regulates other air commerce. Insofar as that leaves corporate aircraft and air taxis beyond the reach of the Rule, the distinction is not unreasonable, says the agency: corporate pilots do not serve the public as do common carriers; and while air taxis do serve the public, unlike commuter airlines their safety record has not been a source of concern for the FAA or the NTSB, perhaps because their operations--typically involving only a few short haul passengers and less sophisticated equipment--place lesser demands upon their pilots. 51 We conclude that the FAA adequately explained its decision to apply the Age 60 Rule to pilots of commuter aircraft but not to pilots of corporate aircraft and air taxis. The Congress clearly left the FAA free to regulate corporate aircraft operations at less than the highest possible degree of safety. See Quesada, 276 F.2d at 898 (The Administrator did not act unreasonably in placing greater limitations on the certificates of pilots flying planes carrying large numbers of passengers who have no opportunity to select a pilot of their own choice. The Federal Aviation Act contemplates just such distinctions between the regulations governing 'air commerce' and those governing other air transportation). 52 As for excluding air taxi operations while extending the Rule to commuter operations, we accept the FAA's point that the NTSB had asked the agency specifically to consider extending the Rule to commuter operations. 60 Fed.Reg. at 16,235. In responding to the NTSB's request, the FAA was not obliged--contrary to our colleague in dissent, see dissent at 6--to consider whether the Rule might further improve safety if applied to still other operations. Nor, we note, could such an extension of the Rule in any way benefit the petitioners; indeed, as the Seventh Circuit has observed, it would foreclose them from a source of post-60 employment. See Starr v. FAA, 589 F.2d 307, 313 (1978). 53