Foreign Air Operator Certificates Issued by a Regional Safety Oversight Organization

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Federal Aviation Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>14 CFR Part 129</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No.: FAA-2024-0176; Notice No. 24-21]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2120-AL93</RIN> <SUBJECT>Foreign Air Operator Certificates Issued by a Regional Safety Oversight Organization</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), Department of Transportation (DOT). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM). <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> Current FAA regulations require that foreign applicants for operating specifications must hold a valid air operator certificate issued by the State of the Operator. Some International Civil Aviation Organization Contracting States have joined together to form Regional Safety Oversight Organizations. These organizations may provide a uniform regulatory structure for safety oversight and provide technical assistance and the execution of safety oversight functions on behalf of their member States. Regional Safety Oversight Organizations have been established in many parts of the world. These organizations may be formed based on a variety of differing arrangements among member States. The institutional structures of these organizations range from highly formalized intergovernmental organizations established on the basis of formal legal agreements, to less formalized organizations established under the International Civil Aviation Organization Cooperative Development of Operational Safety and Continuing Airworthiness Program. States participating in Regional Safety Oversight Organizations may delegate various functions or tasks to these organizations based on the extent of delegated legal authority stipulated in the Regional Safety Oversight Organization's formation documentation. One of the functions member States may delegate to some of the highly formalized and more fully resourced Regional Safety Oversight Organizations is the issuance of air operator certificates on behalf of the State of the Operator. This regulation change would allow the FAA to review and, if acceptable to the Administrator, recognize as valid air operator certificates issued by the Regional Safety Oversight Organization to foreign air carriers on behalf of the State of the Operator for purposes of evaluating foreign applicants for operating specifications. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Send comments on or before June 21, 2024. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Send comments identified by docket number FAA-2024-0176 using any of the following methods: • <E T="03">Federal eRulemaking Portal:</E> Go to <E T="03">www.regulations.gov</E> and follow the online instructions for sending your comments electronically. • <E T="03">Mail:</E> Send comments to Docket Operations, M-30; U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, Room W12-140, West Building Ground Floor, Washington, DC 20590-0001. • <E T="03">Hand Delivery or Courier:</E> Take comments to Docket Operations in Room W12-140 of the West Building Ground Floor at 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, Washington, DC, between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, except Federal holidays. • <E T="03">Fax:</E> Fax comments to Docket Operations at (202) 493-2251. <E T="03">Privacy:</E> In accordance with 5 U.S.C. 553(c), DOT solicits comments from the public to better inform its rulemaking process. DOT posts these comments, without edit, including any personal information the commenter provides, to <E T="03">www.regulations.gov,</E> as described in the system of records notice (DOT/ALL-14 FDMS), which can be reviewed at <E T="03">www.dot.gov/privacy.</E> <E T="03">Docket:</E> Background documents or comments received may be read at <E T="03">www.regulations.gov</E> at any time. Follow the online instructions for accessing the docket or go to the Docket Operations in Room W12-140 of the West Building Ground Floor at 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, Washington, DC, between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, except Federal holidays. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Tim Shaver, International Program Division/International Operations Branch, Federal Aviation Administration, 800 Independence Avenue SW, Washington, DC 20591; telephone (202) 267-1704; email <E T="03">tim.shaver@faa.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Executive Summary</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Overview of the Proposed Rule</HD> This proposed rule would amend the regulations for applications by foreign air carriers and foreign persons for operations specifications under 14 CFR part 129 and amend regulations for the denial of applications for operations specifications. The proposed rule would also apply to the operation of foreign carriers within the United States, as well as foreign persons or carriers operating U.S.-registered aircraft in common carriage solely outside the United States. <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> This proposal would amend three sections in subpart A of part 129: § 129.1, Applicability and definitions; § 129.7, Application, issuance, or denial of operations specifications; and § 129.9, Contents of operations specifications. <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  14 CFR 129.1, Applicability and definitions. </FTNT> Section 129.1 would be amended to include definitions for “Regional Safety Oversight Organization” and “State of the Operator.” Section 129.7 would be amended to accommodate the recognition as valid by the FAA of air operator certificates (AOCs) issued by a Regional Safety Oversight Organization (RSOO) on behalf of the State of the Operator  <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> in the process of reviewing applications for operations specifications. Additional amendment of this section would align the conditions for the FAA's denial of an application for operations specifications with the conditions for eligibility for issuance of operations specifications. <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>  The term “State of the Operator” is explained later in this document. </FTNT> Section 129.9 would be amended to reflect the possible acceptance and recognition as valid by the FAA of AOCs issued by an RSOO on behalf of the State of the Operator for purposes of the contents of operations specifications issued under part 129. <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. Background</HD> Title 49 of the United States Code contains the basic authority for promoting safe flight of civil aircraft in air commerce and for regulating the global operations of U.S.-registered aircraft. For foreign air carriers serving the United States, the basic operating requirements are found in 14 CFR parts 91 and 129. The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Annexes to the Convention on International Civil Aviation (the Chicago Convention) apply to the international operations of air carriers. <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> The applicable ICAO Annexes are: Annex 1—Personnel Licensing; Annex 6—Part I, Operation of Aircraft—International Commercial Air Transport—Aeroplanes; Annex 6—Part III, Operation of Aircraft—International Operations—Helicopters; and Annex 8—Airworthiness of Aircraft. <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>  Convention on International Civil Aviation is available at <E T="03">www.icao.int/publications/documents/7300_orig.pdf.</E> </FTNT> ICAO Annexes contain the international standards for safety, regulation, and efficiency of air navigation. These international standards define the minimum level of safety necessary for the recognition by Contracting States  <SU>4</SU> <FTREF/> of certificates of airworthiness, certificates of competency, and licenses that allow for the flight of aircraft of other States into or over their territories. They also provide for the protection of other aircraft, third parties, and property. As with all Contracting States to the Chicago Convention, the United States is obligated to recognize only those certificates of airworthiness, certificates of competency, and licenses issued or rendered valid by another Contracting State, provided that the requirements under which these certificates or licenses are issued or rendered valid meet or exceed the minimum standards established by the Chicago Convention. <FTNT> <SU>4</SU>  The term “Contracting States” refer to States which have ratified or adhered to the Chicago Convention. There are currently 193 Contracting States. </FTNT> Under 14 CFR part 129 the FAA issues operations specifications to foreign air carriers conducting operations within the United States and foreign air carriers or foreign persons operating U.S.-registered aircraft in common carriage solely outside the United States. These operations specifications ensure a common understanding between the foreign air carrier or foreign person and the FAA. The FAA-issued operations specifications describe the scope of a foreign air carrier's authorized operations within the United States and currently must include: contact information for the operator in the State of the Operator; the certificate number and validity of the foreign air carrier's AOC issued by the State of the Operator; each regular and alternate airport to be used in scheduled operations; the type of aircraft and registration markings of each aircraft; the approved maintenance program and minimum equipment list for United States registered aircraft authorized for use; the designation of an agent for service within the United States, including the agent's full name and office address or usual place of residence; and any other item the Administrator determines is necessary. See § 129.9(a). For foreign air carriers or foreign persons operating U.S.-registered aircraft in common carriage solely outside the United States, the FAA-issued operations specifications currently must include: contact information for the operator in ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 65k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━