Opinion ID: 296613
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Decisional Criteria

Text: 11 Before the CAB can issue a certificate of authority for a carrier, the Federal Aviation Act of 1958 requires the Board to find in formal language that such air transportation 'is required by the public convenience and necessity.' 9 Therefore, where there are new routes involved, the first inquiry is logically whether the markets to be served actually need new or additional air service. This is not a perfunctory pro forma inquiry; the finding of a public need for the air service, with specific details as to the quantity, quality, frequency, type, equipment required, facilities available, etc., is a fundamental starting point. 10 The next question, dependent upon the findings as to the first primary question, is which carrier or carriers can provide the needed air transportation service, assuming any is needed at all. The Board has followed this logical approach in many cases, including several decided in 1969. 11 Even where multiple routes are involved, an individual determination of need has been made for each market before the question of which carrier should be selected is determined. 12 12 These basic criteria, and their logical sequence, are no mere theoretician's symmetrical delight. They are guides to sound decisions by the Board, and can be ignored only at the risk of unsound decisions, a risk which may have materialized here. An unsound decision on route allocation, awarding a route to a carrier when neither the need justifies it nor does the carrier have the ability to service it, hurts all concerned: the public interest by saddling the country with an inefficient and distorted air transport system, and perhaps an augmented subsidy; the carrier which could most efficiently service the route but which is barred from doing so; the 'successful' carrier which may have a liability on its hands rather than what it optimistically envisioned as a financial asset. Entrepreneurs are congenitally optimistic, and properly so; the duty of the Board is to make a coldly objective appraisal; it has statutory and decisional guidelines to assist it in doing so. We are not called upon to decide directly if the Board made a sound decision; judicial review calls on us to determine only if the Board followed established principles and procedures which provide the required procedural due process for the adversary parties and which should lead to a sound decision. 13 13