Published 30-day FRN

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Federal Register / Vol. 83, No. 65 / Wednesday, April 4, 2018 / Notices

U.S. Department of Transportation,
Docket Operations, M–30, West
Building Ground Floor, Room W12–140,
1200 New Jersey Avenue SE,
Washington, DC 20590. You may also
send comments electronically via the
internet at http://www.regulations.gov.
All comments will become part of this
docket and will be available for
inspection and copying at the above
address between 10:00 a.m. and 5:00
p.m., Monday through Friday, except
Federal holidays. An electronic version
of this document and all documents
entered into this docket is available at
http://www.regulations.gov.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:
Bianca Carr, U.S. Department of
Transportation, Maritime
Administration, 1200 New Jersey
Avenue SE, Room W23–453,
Washington, DC 20590. Telephone 202–
366–9309, Email [email protected].
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: As
described by the applicant the intended
service of the vessel HONU MANA is:
—Intended Commercial Use of Vessel:
‘‘Chartering, whale watches, and
sunset cruises’’
—Geographic Region: ‘‘Hawaii’’
The complete application is given in
DOT docket MARAD–2018–0048 at
http://www.regulations.gov. Interested
parties may comment on the effect this
action may have on U.S. vessel builders
or businesses in the U.S. that use U.S.flag vessels. If MARAD determines, in
accordance with 46 U.S.C. 12121 and
MARAD’s regulations at 46 CFR part
388, that the issuance of the waiver will
have an unduly adverse effect on a U.S.vessel builder or a business that uses
U.S.-flag vessels in that business, a
waiver will not be granted. Comments
should refer to the docket number of
this notice and the vessel name in order
for MARAD to properly consider the
comments. Comments should also state
the commenter’s interest in the waiver
application, and address the waiver
criteria given in section 388.4 of
MARAD’s regulations at 46 CFR part
388.

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Privacy Act
In accordance with 5 U.S.C. 553(c),
DOT/MARAD solicits comments from
the public to better inform its
rulemaking process. DOT/MARAD posts
these comments, without edit, to
www.regulations.gov, as described in
the system of records notice, DOT/ALL–
14 FDMS, accessible through
www.dot.gov/privacy. In order to
facilitate comment tracking and
response, we encourage commenters to
provide their name, or the name of their
organization; however, submission of

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names is completely optional. Whether
or not commenters identify themselves,
all timely comments will be fully
considered. If you wish to provide
comments containing proprietary or
confidential information, please contact
the agency for alternate submission
instructions.
(Authority: 49 CFR 1.93(a), 46 U.S.C. 55103,
46 U.S.C. 12121)

*

*

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*

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By Order of the Maritime Administrator.
Dated: March 29, 2018.
T. Mitchell Hudson, Jr.,
Secretary, Maritime Administration.
[FR Doc. 2018–06790 Filed 4–3–18; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4910–81–P

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
Office of the Secretary
[OST Docket No. DOT–OST–2011–0170]

Notice of Submission of Proposed
Information Collection to OMB
Office of the Secretary,
Department of Transportation.
ACTION: Notice and request for
comments; agency request for renewal
and partial modification of a previously
approved collection: disclosure of codesharing arrangements and long-term wet
leases.
AGENCY:

In accordance with the
Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (44
U.S.C. Chapter 35, as amended) this
notice announces the Department of
Transportation’s (Department) intention
to reinstate and partially-modify an
Office of Management and Budget
(OMB) control number as related to the
Disclosure of Code-Sharing
Arrangements and Long-Term Wet
Leases. The growth in the use of codesharing, wet-leasing, and similar
marketing tools, particularly in
international air transportation, led the
Department on March 15, 1999, to adopt
specific regulations requiring the
disclosure of code-sharing arrangements
and long-term wet leases by carriers
(U.S. and foreign) and ticket agents via
oral, written, and internet
communications. In a recent final rule
titled ‘‘Enhancing Airline Passenger
Protections’’ (See, 81 FR 76800,
November 3, 2016), the Department,
among other things, amended the codeshare disclosure regulation to require
that carriers and ticket agents must
disclose any code-share arrangements
on their websites, including mobile
websites and applications; clarify the
format in which that information must
be displayed; and specify that verbal

SUMMARY:

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code-share disclosures should be made
the first time a flight involving a codeshare arrangement is offered to
consumers or the first time a consumer
inquiries about such a flight whether by
telephone or in person conversations.
In compliance with the Paperwork
Reduction Act of 1995, this notice also
announces that the request for
reinstatement and partial-modification
of an OMB Control Number for the
Information Collection Request (ICR)
abstracted below is being forwarded to
the Office of Management and Budget
(OMB) for review and comments. A
Federal Register Notice with a 60-day
comment period soliciting comments on
the following information collection
was published on September 12, 2017.
DATES: Comments on this notice must be
received by May 4, 2018. Interested
persons are invited to submit comments
regarding this proposal.
ADDRESSES: Send comments regarding
the burden estimate, including
suggestions for reducing the burden, to
the Office of Management and Budget,
Attention: Desk Officer for the Office of
the Secretary of Transportation, 725
17th Street NW, Washington, DC 20503.
Comments may also be sent via email to
OMB at the following address: oira_
[email protected].
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:
Daeleen Chesley, (202) 366–6792,
[email protected], Office of the
Assistant General Counsel for Aviation
Enforcement and Proceedings (C–70),
U.S. Department of Transportation, 1200
New Jersey Avenue SE, Washington,
DC, 20590.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
OMB Control Number: 2105–0537.
Title: Disclosure of Code-Sharing
Arrangements and Long-Term Wet
Leases.
Abstract: Code-sharing is the name
given to a common airline industry
marketing practice where, by mutual
agreement between cooperating carriers,
at least one of the airline designator
codes used on a flight is different from
that of the airline operating the aircraft.
In one version of code-sharing, two or
more airlines each use their own
designator codes on the same aircraft
operation. Although only one airline
operates the flight, each airline in a
code-sharing arrangement may hold out,
market, and sell the flight as its own in
published schedules. Code-sharing also
refers to other arrangements, such as
when a code on a passenger’s ticket is
not that of the operator of the flight, but
where the operator does not hold out
the service in its own name. Such codesharing arrangements are common
between commuter air carriers and their

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Federal Register / Vol. 83, No. 65 / Wednesday, April 4, 2018 / Notices
larger affiliates. In a wet-lease situation,
a leasing arrangement is made whereby
the lessor provides both an aircraft and
crew to a lessee dedicated to a certain
route under either an agreement that
lasts more than 60 days or under a series
of such lease agreements that amount to
a continuing arrangement lasting more
than 60 days.
Although code-sharing and wet-lease
arrangements can offer significant
consumer benefits, they can also be
misleading unless consumers know the
identity of the airline operating the
flight. The growth in the use of codesharing and wet-leasing, particularly in
international air transportation, led the
Department to adopt specific regulations
requiring the disclosure of code-sharing
arrangements and long-term wet leases
on March 15, 1999 (14 CFR part 257).
More specifically, the rule requires
carriers to provide information about
their code-share relationships in written
or electronic schedule information
provided by carriers to the public (e.g.
the Official Airline Guide/OAG). The
rule also requires carriers and ticket
agents to disclose code-share
information in written notice at the time
of a ticket purchase. Further, the
regulation requires those entities to tell
prospective consumers the first time a
flight is identified in all oral
communications that the transporting
airline is not the airline whose
designator code will appear on travel
documents and to identify the
transporting airline by its corporate
name and any other name under which
that service is held out to the public.
In 2010, to further enhance these
consumer protections, Congress enacted
by Public Law 111–216, sec. 210
(August 1, 2010), which was codified as
49 U.S.C. 41712(c). Among other things,
the statute requires ticket agents and
carriers (U.S. and foreign) to disclose in
oral communication or in written or
electronic communications (including
on the internet), prior to the purchase of
a ticket, the name of the carrier
providing the air transportation and, if
the flight has more than one segment,
the name of each carrier providing the
air transportation for each flight
segment. The statute also requires ticket
agents and carriers (U.S. and foreign)
that sell tickets on an internet website
to disclose the required information on
the first display of their website
following a consumer’s search of a
requested itinerary in a format that is
easily visible.
In a recent final rule, Enhancing
Airline Passenger Protections III (81 FR
76800, November 3, 2016), the
Department clarified its code-share
disclosure regulation to ensure that

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carriers and ticket agents disclose codeshare arrangements in schedules,
advertisements, and communications
with consumers. The rule amended the
Department’s code-share disclosure
regulation to codify the statutory
requirement that carriers and ticket
agents must in a format that is easily
visible to a viewer disclose any codeshare arrangements on the first display
of the website following itinerary search
results; clarify that the requirement for
code-share disclosures in flight itinerary
search results and flight schedule
displays includes information provided
by airlines via mobile websites and
applications; clarify the format in which
that information must be displayed; and
specify that verbal code-share
disclosures should be made the first
time a flight involving a code-share
arrangement is offered to consumers or
inquired about by consumers during
telephone or in person conversations.
As most of these provisions are
implementing the statutory requirement
enacted in 2010, carriers and ticket
agents should already be complying
with most of the requirements.1 The
aspect of the provision which is new is
the specification of when during a
telephone or in-person booking process
a carrier or ticket agent must disclose
the code-share information, which may
result in additional compliance costs for
some carriers and ticket agents. Those
additional costs would be borne by
those carriers and ticket agents that
currently do not present code-share
information at the first mention of a
flight during a reservation call or inperson booking. As such, these carriers
and ticket agents may have slightly
longer reservation calls and longer inperson bookings. However, the
disclosure was already required so the
additional time, if any, would be
minimal.
In addition to costs for additional
agent time during some calls and inperson bookings, some respondents may
have a slight increase in their training
costs, as they modify their trainings to
note that code-share information must
be shared when the flight is first
presented to the consumer.2 These
1 The regulated entities that have a website
should already have the required information
programmed in their systems and that information
should already appear on their websites. Thus, the
incremental costs to add the information to mobile
websites and applications should be small. To the
extent there are any costs, they could be minimized
if any necessary changes were incorporated at the
same time as another upgrade.
2 The costs are minimal if this change is
incorporated into agent curricula during the same
time as other updates and/or sent in an update
bulletin via the carrier’s/travel agent’s intranet
system, as is standard industry practice.

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14549

additional training costs are likely to be
incurred only by those respondents
which do not already present code-share
information at the first mention of a
flight.
The Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995
(PRA) and its implementing regulations,
5 CFR part 1320, require Federal
agencies to issue two notices seeking
public comment on information
collection activities before OMB may
approve paperwork packages. 44 U.S.C.
3506, 3507; 5 CFR 1320.5, 1320.8(d)(1),
1320.12. On September 12, 2017, the
Department published a 60-day notice
in the Federal Register soliciting
comment on ICRs for which the agency
was seeking OMB approval (82 FR at
42877). The Department received one
comment, but the comment was not
relevant to this collection. Accordingly,
the Department announces that these
information collection activities have
been re-evaluated and certified under 5
CFR. 1320.5(a) and forwarded to OMB
for review and approval pursuant to 5
CFR 1320.12(c).
Before OMB decides whether to
approve these proposed collections of
information, it must provide 30 days for
public comment. 44 U.S.C. 3507(b); 5
CFR 1320.12(d). Federal law requires
OMB to approve or disapprove
paperwork packages between 30 and 60
days after the 30-day notice is
published. 44 U.S.C. 3507(b)–(c); 5 CFR
1320.12(d); see also 60 FR 44978, 44983
(Aug. 29, 1995). The 30-day notice
informs the regulated community to file
relevant comments to OMB and affords
the agency adequate time to digest
public comments before it renders a
decision. 60 FR 44983 (Aug. 29, 1995).
Therefore, respondents should submit
their respective comments to OMB
within 30 days of publication to best
ensure their full consideration. 5 CFR
1320.12(c); see also 60 FR 44983 (Aug.
29, 1995).
This notice addresses the information
collection requirements set forth in the
Department’s regulation requiring
disclosure of code-share and wet-leases,
14 CFR 257. The reinstated OMB control
number will be applicable to all the
provisions set forth in this notice. The
title, a description of the respondents,
and an estimate of the annual
recordkeeping and periodic reporting
burden are set forth below:
Title: Disclosure of Code-Sharing
Arrangements and Long Term Wet
Leases in Flight Itineraries and
Schedules, Oral Communications with
Prospective Consumers, Ticket
Confirmations, and Advertisements.
Respondents: All U.S. air carriers and
foreign air carriers that participate in
code-sharing arrangements or long-term

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wet leases involving scheduled
passenger air transportation; and all
ticket agents doing business in the
United States that sell scheduled
passenger air transportation services
involving code-sharing arrangements or
long-term wet leases.
Number of Respondents: 12,165
(estimated 48 marketing carriers 3 and
12,117 travel agents/tour operators 4).
Estimated Annual Burden on
Respondents: 29.26 to 45.65 hours
(1,755.6 to 2,739.0 minutes) per year for
each respondent. The hours were
calculated by using the estimated
annual number of code-share related
disclosures involving personal contact
via a call or in person (58.25 million to
90.87 million) 5 and multiplying by the
estimated average amount of time per
trip for an agent to disclose a code-share
itinerary (22 seconds or .006111 hours)
to determine the total number of burden
hours (355,966 to 555,307), and then
dividing the total number of burden
hours by the estimated number of
respondents (12,165).
Estimated Total Annual Burden:
Annual reporting burden for this data
collection is estimated at 355,966 to
555,307 hours for all travel agents and
airline ticket agents who have personal
contact (via a call or in person) with a
consumer that involves a code-share
flight. Most of the data collection
associated with this ICR is
accomplished through travelers using
highly automated computerized systems
to make their air travel reservation(s), in
which the code-share data is already
available on the regulated entities
websites and/or is programmed into
their database/reservation systems.
Frequency: For disclosures involving
oral communications: The Department
estimates 15 seconds per call (to reveal
3 See, Final Regulatory Impact Analysis for
Rulemaking Regarding Enhancing Airline Passenger
Protections III (FRIA EAPP III) at page 10, prepared
by HDR, October 2016.
4 See, FRIA EAPP III at page 14.
5 Per BTS data, there were 932 million
enplanements in 2016. See, https://
www.rita.dot.gov/bts/press_releases/bts017_17. Of
those travel itineraries, the Department estimates
that 25% to 39% of these enplanements
(233,000,000 to 363,480,000) involve a code-share
flight in which an agent must reveal that
information. See, https://www.transtats.bts.gov/
databases.asp?Mode_ID=1&Mode_Desc=
Aviation&Subject_ID2=0.
Of these 233,000,000 to 363,480,000
enplanements, the Department also estimates that
25% of travelers (58,250,000 to 90,870,000) make a
call to an airline or travel agent to book a ticket or
obtain information about a flight and each traveler
will only need to obtain the information once per
travel itinerary. See, https://www.asta.org/News/
PRDetail.cfm?ItemNumber=14517&nav
ItemNumber=539 and http://fortune.com/2016/07/
27/travel-agents/ (for the estimated number of
travelers who use a travel agent).

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the code-share information) and an
average of 1.5 calls per trip (a total of
22.5 seconds per respondent per trip)
for the approximately 25% to 39% of
itineraries that are estimated to involve
a code-share itinerary, of which the
Department estimates that 25% of
travelers make a call to an airline or
travel agent to book a ticket or obtain
information about a flight and each
traveler will only need to obtain the
information once per travel itinerary.
For transactions involving written and
internet disclosure: The Department
estimates the burden should be minimal
to non-existent 6 as many airlines
already have a process in place to make
code-share information available written
in their schedules, by written notice at
time of ticket purchase and available on
their websites (including mobile sites)
and applications. In addition, most
marketing airlines currently provide
information about their code-share
flights to the GDSs who, in turn, provide
that information to travel agents. As the
code-share information is integrated
into the data provided by the airlines to
GDSs and travel agents, the code-share
information is automatically displayed
on the internet/computer, as well as on
a printed version of an itinerary/ticket.
Public Comments Invited: You are
asked to comment on any aspect of this
information collection, including (a)
whether the proposed collection of
information is necessary for the
Department’s performance; (b) the
accuracy of the estimated burden; (c)
ways for the Department to enhance the
quality, utility, and clarity of the
information collection; and (d) ways
that the burden could be minimized
without reducing the quality of the
collected information.
Authority: The Paperwork Reduction Act
of 1995; 44 U.S.C. Chapter 35, as amended;
and 49 CFR 1:48.
Issued in Washington, DC, on March 27,
2018.
Claire Barrett,
Departmental Chief Privacy & Information
Governance Officer Office of the Secretary.
[FR Doc. 2018–06857 Filed 4–3–18; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4910–9X–P

6 See,

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DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
Office of the Secretary
[OST Docket No. DOT–OST–2011–0022]

Notice of Submission of Proposed
Information Collection to OMB Agency
Request for Renewal of a Previously
Approved Collection: On-Line
Complaint/Comment Form for ServiceRelated Issues in Air Transportation
Office of the Secretary,
Department of Transportation.
ACTION: Notice and request for
comments.
AGENCY:

In compliance with the
Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (44
U.S.C. 3501 et seq.), this notice
announces that the request for
reinstatement of an OMB Control
Number for the Information Collection
Request (ICR) abstracted below is being
forwarded to the Office of Management
and Budget (OMB) for review and
comments. A Federal Register Notice
with a 60-day comment period soliciting
comments on the following information
collection was published on October 31,
2017 (82 FR 50483).
DATES: Comments on this notice must be
received by May 4, 2018.
ADDRESSES: Send comments regarding
the burden estimate, including
suggestions for reducing the burden, to
the Office of Management and Budget,
Attention: Desk Officer for the Office of
the Secretary of Transportation, 725
17th Street NW, Washington, DC 20503.
Comments may also be sent via email to
OMB at the following address: oira_
[email protected].
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:
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–
6792 (voice) or at Daeleen.Chesley@
dot.gov.
SUMMARY:

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

OMB Control Number: 2105–0568.
Title: Reinstatement of Aviation
Consumer Protection Division Web Page
On-Line Complaint/Comment Form.
Abstract: The Department of
Transportation’s (Department) Office of
the Assistant General Counsel for
Aviation Enforcement and Proceedings
(Enforcement Office) has broad
authority under 49 U.S.C., Subtitle VII,
to investigate and enforce consumer
protection and civil rights laws and
regulations related to air transportation.
Among other things, the Enforcement
Office, including its Aviation Consumer

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