FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Friday, September 7, 2001
Contact: David Smallen
Tel: (202) 366 –5568
BTS 18-01
DOT Proposes Rule To Fill Small Airline and Cargo Data Gap
The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) today proposed to include the air traffic activity reporting of small certificated, commuter and all-cargo carriers with data collected from large passenger airlines.
In a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking published in the Aug. 28 Federal Register, DOT’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) and the Office of the Secretary of Transportation proposed to require small certificated, commuter and all-cargo carriers to report on passenger and freight traffic, available capacity and seats, and number and duration of flights.
“The additional data collected under the proposed rule would provide planners and decision-makers with more information to analyze the aviation system,” Dr. Ashish Sen, BTS Director, said. “The new reporting requirement recognizes that smaller carriers now carry millions of passengers a year.”
The existing rule exempts carriers operating only planes of fewer than 60 seats and carriers providing only domestic, all-cargo service from the detailed reporting requirements. The new requirements would make the data from these airlines compatible with data collected from large passenger airlines.
In addition to the new requirements for small certificated, commuter and all-cargo carriers, the proposed rule would make the following changes:
U.S. carriers would report detailed information for all their military, domestic all-cargo, and domestic charter flights.
Foreign
air carriers would be required to report on all flights to and from the
United States, eliminating the small aircraft reporting exclusion.
The
operating carrier would report joint-service operations, including
code-sharing, wet-leasing and substitution-of-service operations.
U.S. carriers would be required to submit total aircraft hours for each reported aircraft type, fuel consumed by aircraft type and aircraft days assigned to service.
BTS would distribute software to the carriers to ease the reporting burden.
To view a copy of the proposed rule, go to the Docket Management System website, http://dms.dot.gov, and follow the instructions for viewing the documents in BTS Docket No. OST 98-4043. Comments must be received within 90 days.
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