Prohibition Against Certain Flights in the Kabul Flight Information Region (FIR) (OAKX)

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Federal Aviation Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>14 CFR Part 91</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FAA-2023-1415; Amdt. No. 91-369A]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2120-AL99</RIN> <SUBJECT>Prohibition Against Certain Flights in the Kabul Flight Information Region (FIR) (OAKX)</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), Department of Transportation (DOT). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is issuing this final rule to permit all: U.S. air carriers; U.S. commercial operators; persons exercising the privileges of an airman certificate issued by the FAA, except when such persons are operating U.S.-registered aircraft for a foreign air carrier; and operators of U.S.-registered civil aircraft, except when the operator of such aircraft is a foreign air carrier, to operate transiting overflights of the Kabul Flight Information Region (FIR) (OAKX) on jet routes P500-G500 at altitudes at and above Flight Level (FL) 300, subject to the approval of, and in accordance with the conditions established by, the appropriate authorities of Afghanistan. The FAA became aware that certain U.S. operators were having difficulty using jet routes P500-G500 in the Kabul FIR (OAKX) at altitudes at and above FL320 due to aircraft performance issues under certain meteorological conditions. After consideration of Afghanistan's practice of publishing Notices to Air Missions (NOTAMs) regarding overflights on these jet routes, the lack of any reported security incidents posing safety-of-flight risks to civil aircraft overflights on these jet routes since the FAA issued this Special Federal Aviation Regulation (SFAR) in July 2023 or while the FAA flight prohibition NOTAM that preceded it was in effect, and the very brief period of time U.S. civil aviation overflights on these jet routes would be in the Kabul FIR (OAKX), the FAA has determined transiting U.S. civil aviation overflights operating on jet routes P500-G500 in the Kabul FIR (OAKX) at altitudes at and above FL300 present a low risk. The FAA continues to prohibit U.S. civil aviation operations in the remainder of the Kabul FIR (OAKX) at altitudes below FL320 due to hazards to persons and aircraft engaged in operations at those altitudes due to the risk posed by violent extremist and militant activity and the lack of adequate risk mitigation capabilities to counter such activity. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This final rule is effective on July 5, 2024. </EFFDATE> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Bill Petrak, Flight Standards Service, through the Washington Operations Center, Federal Aviation Administration, 800 Independence Avenue SW, Washington, DC 20591; telephone (202) 267-3203; email <E T="03">9-FAA-OverseasFlightProhibitions@faa.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Executive Summary</HD> This action amends Special Federal Aviation Regulation (SFAR) No. 119, 14 CFR 91.1619, to permit U.S. civil aviation airmen and operators to conduct transiting overflights of the Kabul FIR (OAKX) on jet routes P500-G500 at altitudes at and above FL300, subject to the approval of, and in accordance with the conditions established by, the appropriate authorities of Afghanistan. On July 25, 2023, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) published a final rule in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> to prohibit certain flight operations in the Kabul FIR (OAKX) at altitudes below FL320 by all: U.S. air carriers; U.S. commercial operators; persons exercising the privileges of an airman certificate issued by the FAA, except when such persons are operating U.S.-registered aircraft for a foreign air carrier; and operators of U.S.-registered civil aircraft, except when the operator of such aircraft is a foreign air carrier. In that final rule, the FAA determined that U.S. civil aviation overflights of the Kabul FIR (OAKX) at altitudes at and above FL320 could resume due to diminished risks to U.S. civil aviation operations at those altitudes. Subsequently, the FAA became aware that certain U.S. operators were having difficulty using jet routes P500-G500 in the Kabul FIR (OAKX) at altitudes at and above FL320 due to aircraft performance issues under certain meteorological conditions. After consideration of Afghanistan's practice of publishing NOTAMs regarding overflights on these jet routes, the lack of any reported security incidents posing safety-of-flight risks to civil aircraft overflights on these jet routes since the FAA issued SFAR No. 119, 14 CFR 91.1619, in July 2023 or while the FAA flight prohibition NOTAM that preceded it was in effect, and the very brief period of time U.S. civil aviation overflights on these jet routes, on which the minimum en route altitude is FL300, would be in the Kabul FIR (OAKX), the FAA assesses the risk to the safety of transiting U.S. civil aviation overflights operating on jet routes P500-G500 in the Kabul FIR (OAKX) at altitudes at and above FL300 is low. Under the FAA flight prohibition NOTAM preceding the July 2023 final rule, the FAA had previously permitted U.S. civil aviation to conduct transiting overflight operations in the Kabul FIR (OAKX) on jet routes P500-G500. The FAA continues to prohibit U.S. civil aviation operations in the remainder of the Kabul FIR (OAKX) at altitudes below FL320 due to hazards to persons and aircraft engaged in operations at those altitudes due to the risk posed by violent extremist and militant activity and the lack of adequate risk mitigation capabilities to counter such activity. Therefore, the FAA is issuing this final rule to permit U.S. civil aviation to operate transiting overflights of the Kabul FIR (OAKX) on jet routes P500-G500 at altitudes at and above FL300, subject to the approval of, and in accordance with the conditions established by, the appropriate authorities of Afghanistan. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Authority and Good Cause</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Authority</HD> The FAA is responsible for the safety of flight in the U.S. and for the safety of U.S. civil operators, U.S.-registered civil aircraft, and U.S.-certificated airmen throughout the world. Sections 106(f) and (g) of title 49, U.S. Code (U.S.C.), subtitle I, establish the FAA Administrator's authority to issue rules on aviation safety. Subtitle VII of title 49, Aviation Programs, describes in more detail the scope of the agency's authority. Section 40101(d)(1) provides that the Administrator shall consider in the public interest, among other matters, assigning, maintaining, and enhancing safety and security as the highest priorities in air commerce. Section 40105(b)(1)(A) requires the Administrator to exercise this authority consistently with the obligations of the U.S. Government under international agreements. The FAA is promulgating this rule under the authority described in 49 U.S.C. 44701, General requirements. Under that section, the FAA is charged broadly with promoting safe flight of civil aircraft in air commerce by prescribing, among other things, regulations and minimum standards for practices, methods, and procedures that the Administrator finds necessary for safety in air commerce and national security. This regulation is within the scope of the FAA's authority because it provides relief to U.S. civil aviation operators and airmen conducting transiting overflights of the Kabul FIR (OAKX) on jet routes P500-G500, permitting those persons to operate at altitudes at and above FL300, instead of at altitudes at and above FL320, as is required for operations conducted in the rest of the Kabul FIR (OAKX). <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. Good Cause for Immediate Adoption</HD> Section 553(b)(B) of title 5, U.S. Code, authorizes agencies to dispense with notice and comment procedures for rules when the agency for “good cause” finds that those procedures are “impracticable, unnecessary, or contrary to the public interest.” Also, section 553(d) permits agencies, upon a finding of good cause, to issue rules with an effective date less than 30 days from the date of publication. In this instance, the FAA finds good cause to forgo notice and comment and the delayed effective date because they would be impracticable and contrary to the public interest. Providing notice and the opportunity for the public to comment here would be impracticable. The FAA's flight prohibitions, and any amendments thereto, need to include appropriate boundaries that reflect the agency's current understanding of the risk environment for U.S. civil aviation. This allows the FAA to protect the safety of U.S. operators' aircraft and the lives of their passengers and crews without over-restricting or under-restricting U.S. operators' routing options. However, the risk environment for U.S. civil aviation in airspace managed by other countries with respect to safety of flight is fluid in circumstances involving fighting, violent extremist and militant activity, or periods of heightened tensions, particularly where weapons capable of targeting or otherwise negatively affecting U.S. civil aviation are or may be present. This fluidity, and the potential for rapid changes in the risks to U.S. civil aviation, significantly limits how far in advance of a new or amended flight prohibition the FAA can usefully assess the risk environment. The delay that would be occasioned by providing an opportunity to comment on this action would significantly increase the risk that the resulting final action would not accurately reflect the current risks to U.S. civil aviation associated with the situation and thus would not establish boundaries for the flight prohibition commensurate with those risks. While the FAA sought and responded to public comments, the boundaries of the area in which unacceptable ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 54k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━