[Federal Register Volume 82, Number 97 (Monday, May 22, 2017)]
[Notices]
[Pages 23486-23488]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2017-10344]


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DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION

Office of the Secretary

[OST Docket No. DOT-OST-2010-0140]


Notice of Submission of Proposed Information Collection to OMB

AGENCY: Office of the Secretary, Department of Transportation (DOT).

ACTION: Notice and request for comments.

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SUMMARY: In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 this 
notice announces the Department of Transportation's (Department) 
intention to reinstate an Office of Management and Budget (OMB) control 
number for the collection and posting of certain aviation consumer 
protection-related information from U.S. carriers and foreign carriers. 
On April 25, 2011, the DOT issued a final rule that, among other 
things, extended existing consumer protection requirements that 
previously applied only to U.S. carriers to foreign carriers and 
required that certain U.S. and foreign air carriers report tarmac delay 
information to the DOT for passenger operations that experience a 
tarmac delay time of 3 hours or more at a U.S. airport (See, DOT-OST-
2010-0140). This request seeks to reinstate the control number that is 
associated with the information collection requirements in that rule, 
OMB Control Number 2105-0561.

DATES: Comments on this notice must be received by July 21, 2017. 
Interested persons are invited to submit comments regarding this 
proposal.

ADDRESSES: To ensure that you do not duplicate your docket submissions, 
please submit them by only one of the following means:
     Federal eRulemaking Portal: Go to http://www.regulations.gov and follow the online instructions for submitting 
comments.
     Mail: Docket Management Facility, U.S. Department of 
Transportation, 1200 New Jersey Ave. SE., West Building Ground Floor 
Room W-12/140, Washington, DC 20590-0001;
     Hand delivery: West Building Ground Floor, Room W-12/140, 
1200 New Jersey Ave. SE., between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday through 
Friday,

[[Page 23487]]

except Federal holidays. The telephone number is 202-366-9329.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Kimberly Graber or Daeleen Chesley, 
Office of the Secretary, Office of the Assistant General Counsel for 
Aviation Enforcement and Proceedings (C-70), Department of 
Transportation, 1200 New Jersey Ave. SE., Washington, DC 20590, 202-
366-9342 (voice) 202-366-7152 (fax) or at [email protected] or 
[email protected].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 
    Title: Submission of Miscellaneous Information Collection Systems 
as Required by the Department's Rules to Enhance Airline Passenger 
Protections.
    OMB Control Number: 2105-0561.
    On April 25, 2011, the Department issued a rule to enhance airline 
passenger protections that, among other things, extended to foreign 
carriers the requirement to post tarmac delay plans, customer service 
plans, and contracts of carriage on their Web sites. This requirement 
had previously only applied to U.S. carriers. The rule also required 
that U.S. air carriers that operate passenger service and foreign air 
carriers that operate scheduled passenger service to or from the U.S. 
retain for two years certain information about any ground delay that 
lasts at least three hours, adopt a Customer Service Plan, audit its 
adherence to the plan annually, and retain the results for two years. 
In addition, a prior rule issued on December 30, 2009, required that 
each reporting air carrier (i.e., currently U.S. carriers that account 
for at least 1 percent of domestic scheduled passenger revenues) 
display on its Web site information on each listed flight's on-time 
performance for the previous month for both the carrier's flights and 
those of its non-reporting code-share carriers.
    A Federal agency generally cannot conduct or sponsor a collection 
of information, and the public is generally not required to respond to 
an information collection, unless it is approved by the OMB under the 
PRA and displays a currently valid OMB Control Number. In addition, 
notwithstanding any other provisions of law, no person shall generally 
be subject to penalty for failing to comply with a collection of 
information if the collection of information does not display a valid 
OMB Control Number. See 5 CFR 1320.5(a) and 1320.6.
    This notice addresses five information collection requirements 
concerning information collection requirements set forth in the 
Department's airline passenger protection rules. The reinstated OMB 
control number will be applicable to all information collection systems 
set forth in this notice. For each of these information collections, 
the title, a description of the respondents, and an estimate of the 
annual recordkeeping and periodic reporting burden are set forth below:
    1. Requirement to post customer service plans and contracts of 
carriage on a carrier's Web site. (259.2 and 259.6)
    Title: Posting of Customer Service Plan and Contract of Carriage on 
Web site.
    Respondents: U.S. carriers that operate scheduled passenger or 
public charter service and foreign air carriers operating scheduled 
passenger or public charter service to or from the United States, using 
any aircraft with a designed seating capacity of 30 or more seats. 
Applicable to U.S. carriers that have a Web site and foreign carriers 
that have a Web site marketed toward U.S. consumers.
    Estimated Number of Respondents: 45 U.S. airlines and 65 foreign 
carriers.
    Estimated Total Burden on Respondents: 27 hours and 30 minutes 
(1,650 minutes, average of 15 minutes per U.S. carrier to post plans 
and contracts of carriage on Web site).
    Frequency: One time per respondent.
    2. Requirement to retain for two years information about any tarmac 
delay that lasts at least three hours. (259.2 and 259.4)
    Title: Retaining Ground Delay Information.
    Respondents: U.S. carriers that operate or market scheduled or 
public charter passenger service using any aircraft with a designed 
seating capacity of 30 or more seats, and foreign air carriers that 
operate or market scheduled or public charter passenger service to and 
from the United States using any aircraft with a designed seating 
capacity of 30 or more seats. To be covered, the tarmac delay must have 
occurred at a U.S. large hub, medium hub, small hub or non-hub airport.
    Estimated Number of Respondents: 61 U.S. and 93 foreign carriers.
    Estimated Annual Burden on Respondents: A maximum of 88 hours 
(5,280 minutes) for a U.S. respondent and a maximum of 32 hours (1,920 
minutes) for a foreign respondent. The estimate was calculated 
multiplying the estimated time to retain information about one ground 
delay (2 hours) by the total number of ground delay incidents lasting 
at least three hours per U.S. respondent (a maximum of 44 incidents, 
derived from analysis of tarmac delays for CY2016).
    For foreign respondents, the estimate was similarly calculated by 
multiplying the estimated time to retain information about one ground 
delay (4 hours) by the total number of ground delay incidents lasting 
at least three hours for CY2016 (a maximum of 8 incidents).
    Estimated Total Annual Burden: A maximum of 530 hours (31,800 
minutes) for all respondents. For U.S. carriers, the subtotal was 
determined by multiplying the sum of the total per report time (2 
hours) for U.S. carriers by the total number of CY2016 ground delay 
incidents lasting at least three hours for all U.S. carriers (159 total 
incidents). For foreign carriers the subtotal was determined by 
multiplying the per report time (4 hours) for foreign carriers 
multiplied by the total number of ground delay incidents lasting at 
least three hours for the foreign carriers (53 total incidents). The 
estimate was calculated by adding the sum of the two subtotals for all 
CY2016 tarmac delays lasting at least three hours (318 hours for U.S. 
carriers plus 212 hours for foreign carriers).
    Frequency: A maximum of 44 ground delay information sets to retain 
per year for a single respondent. (N.b. Some air carriers may not 
experience any ground delay incidents of at least three hours in a 
given year, while one air carrier experienced 44 three-hour plus delays 
in CY2016 according to data reported to the Bureau of Transportation 
Statistics).
    3. Requirement that certain U.S. and foreign air carriers retain 
for two years the results of its annual self-audit of its compliance 
with its Customer Service Plan. (259.2 and 259.5)
    Title: Retaining Self-audit of Customer Service Plan.
    Respondents: U.S. carriers that operate scheduled passenger service 
using any aircraft with a designed seating capacity of 30 or more 
seats, and foreign air carriers that operate scheduled passenger 
service to and from the United States using any aircraft with a 
designed seating capacity of 30 or more seats.
    Number of Respondents: 45 U.S. and 70 foreign carriers.
    Estimated Annual Burden on Respondents: 15 minutes per year for 
each respondent. The estimate was calculated by multiplying the 
estimated time to retain a copy of the carrier's self-audit of its 
compliance with its Customer Service Plan by the number of audits per 
carrier in a given year (1).
    Estimated Total Annual Burden: A maximum of 28 hours and 30 minutes 
(1,725 minutes) for all respondents. The estimate was calculated by 
multiplying the time in a given year for each carrier to retain a copy 
of its self-audit of its compliance with its Customer Service Plan (15 
minutes) by the total number of covered carriers (115 carriers).

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    Frequency: One information set to retain per year for each 
respondent.
    4. Requires that each large U.S. carrier display on its Web site, 
at a point before the consumer selects a flight for purchase, the 
following information for each listed flight regarding its on-time 
performance during the last reported month: The percentage of arrivals 
that were on time (within 15 minutes of scheduled arrival time), the 
percentage of arrivals that were more than 30 minutes late (with 
special highlighting if the flight was more than 30 minutes late more 
than 50 percent of the time), and the percentage of flight 
cancellations if the flight is cancelled more than 5% of the time. In 
addition, a marketing/reporting carrier display delay data for its non-
reporting code-share carrier(s). (234.11)
    Title: Displaying On-time performance Information on Carrier Web 
site.
    Respondents: Currently every U.S. carrier that accounts for at 
least one percent of scheduled passenger revenue and maintains a Web 
site.\1\
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    \1\ On January 1, 2018, covered carriers (i.e. ``reporting 
carriers'') will include air carriers that operate scheduled 
passenger service that accounts for at least 0.5 percent and less 
than 1.0 percent of domestic scheduled passenger revenue and that 
market flights directly to consumers via a Web site. The requirement 
will be included as part of this reinstated OMB Control Number. 
However, the requirement will not impact newly reporting carriers 
that do not maintain a Web site that displays flight schedules.
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    Number of Respondents: 12 carriers.
    Estimated Annual Burden on Respondents: 2 hours per month (24 
hours) to cover both updates of a carrier's own delay data and updates 
of code-share delay data.
    Estimated Total Annual Burden: No more than 288 hours (17,280 
minutes) a year for all respondents. The estimate was calculated by 
multiplying the total number of hours per carrier per year for 
management of data links (24) by the number of covered carriers (12).
    Frequency: Updating information for each flight listed on Web site 
12 times per year (1 time per month) for each respondent (for both own 
carrier delay data and code-share delay data).
    5. Requirement that certain carriers report tarmac delay data for 
tarmac delays exceeding 3 hours to the Department on a monthly basis. 
(244.2)
    Title: Reporting Tarmac Delay Data for Tarmac Delays Exceeding 3 
Hours
    Respondents: U.S. carriers that operate scheduled passenger service 
or public charter service using any aircraft with a designed seating 
capacity of 30 or more seats, and foreign air carriers that operate 
scheduled passenger service to and from the United States using any 
aircraft with a designed seating capacity of 30 or more seats. To be 
covered, the tarmac delay must have occurred at a U.S. large hub, 
medium hub, small hub or non-hub airport.
    Number of Respondents: 61 U.S. and 70 foreign carriers.
    Estimated Annual Burden on Respondents: 0.0 to 22.0 hours per U.S. 
respondent (the latter if 44 three-hour plus tarmac delays must be 
reported) and 0.0 to 4 hours per foreign respondent (the latter if 8 
three-hour plus tarmac delays must be reported). This is estimating 
that each report takes 30 minutes to submit.
    Estimated Total Annual Burden: 106 hours (6,360 minutes) for all 
respondents.
    Frequency: One information set to submit per incident for each 
respondent that experiences a tarmac delay of 3 hours or more (212 
three-hour plus tarmac delay reports total were submitted in CY16 to 
the Bureau of Transportation Statistics).
    We invite comments on (a) whether the collection of information is 
necessary for the proper performance of the functions of the 
Department, including whether the information will have practical 
utility; (b) the accuracy of the Department's estimate of the burden of 
the proposed information collection; (c) ways to enhance the quality, 
utility and clarity of the information to be collected; and (d) ways to 
minimize the burden of the collection of information on respondents, 
including the use of automated collection techniques or other forms of 
information technology. All responses to this notice will be summarized 
and included in the request for OMB approval. All comments will also 
become a matter of public record on the docket.

    Issued this 9th day of May, 2017, at Washington, DC.
Blane Workie,
Assistant General Counsel for Aviation Enforcement and Proceedings.
[FR Doc. 2017-10344 Filed 5-19-17; 8:45 am]
 BILLING CODE 4910-9X-P