Court Opinion

ID: 9627480
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 08:44:51.321017+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:06:46.100047
License: Public Domain

RABINOWITZ, Justice,
concurring in part, dissenting in part.
I concur in the court’s rulings contained in parts II and III but have concluded that I must dissent from the court’s holding in part IV of its opinion. I agree that the ATC has authority to regulate “supplemental bases”, but disagree with the court’s unduly restrictive definition of that term. The majority treats the question of whether AIRPAC had established a supplemental base in Anchorage as if an ordinary Dutch Harbor air taxi service, realizing that many of its customers were chartering flights to Anchorage, had simply decided to inform people in Anchorage that those sporadic irregular charters were returning to Dutch Harbor. If this were what AIRPAC had done, I might agree that it had not established a supplemental base. The record, however, reveals that Melody Robinson, an AIRPAC employee stationed in Anchorage, told Anchorage customers that AIRPAC *1255operated a regular 9:00 a.m. flight from Anchorage to Dutch Harbor, and shows that this service was indeed regular. I think the State has a substantial interest in preventing an air taxi operator from making regular and predictable flights from any location without ATC approval. Here, AIRPAC essentially converted its operations into scheduled service. Because today’s opinion implies that the State has only an insubstantial interest in regulating this kind of activity, I dissent.