In a follow on to the requirement that major carriers identify their regional airline partners, The Department of Transportation is now seeking comments from air taxi passengers and industry as to whether companies that arrange such flights need to disclose who owns and operates the aircraft they fly. The move was prompted by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) following the overrun crash of a Challenger business jet at Teterboro N.J. two years ago. It is also seeking comment on what would constitute notification and whether the rule would apply to travel agents and corporate travel departments.
Air Safety Week, RAN’s sister publication, reported that the DOT is aware that passengers and firms booking charters are unaware who owns and operates the aircraft, nor are they familiar with the workings of the industry and what that could mean for their safety. DOT wants the notification to cover the name of the company in “operational control” of the flight, any trade names or other names through which the operator does business and the name of the aircraft owner and any charter broker involved in the flight.
The DOT specifically wants answers to how the information, specifically the names of the aircraft owner, would be useful to passengers and how privacy issues would come into play. In addition, it wants to know how much information should be made available and the cost associated with complying with such a rule. It is seeking comment on when the notice should be delivered – at contract signing or afterward – and whether or not it should be written, delivered orally or placed on a web site. Finally, it wants to know whether it should be provided to individual passengers or just to the entity contracting the service.
The NTSB cited the requirement airlines disclose their code-sharing partners in recommending similar disclosure information be made available to customers. In the Teterboro crash, the crew and the aircraft turned out to be a poorly qualified combination. The DOT is now a little uncertain about how to structure an encompassing rule that would fit such a characteristically unstructured industry yet still afford clients an "informed choice,” without infringing privacy laws.