(a)
All U.S. large certificated air carriers conducting scheduled passenger operations (except helicopter carriers) shall participate in a Passenger Origin-Destination (O & D) Survey covering domestic and international operations, as described in the instructions manual entitled, Instructions to Air Carriers for Collecting and Reporting Passenger Origin-Destination Survey Statistics (Appendix A to this section), and in Passenger Origin-Destination Directives issued by the Department's Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS), Office of Airline Information (OAI). Copies of these Instructions and Directives are provided to each large carrier participating in the Survey. Copies are also available from the Office of Airline Information, K-25, U.S. Department of Transportation, 1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE., Washington, DC 20590. Copies of these Instructions and Directives are available on the BTS Web page at (http://www.bts.gov/programs/airline_information/ ).
(b)
Reports required by this section shall be submitted to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics in a format specified in accounting and reporting directives issued by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics' Director of Airline Information.
(c)
A statistically valid sample of light coupons shall be selected for reporting purposes. The sample shall consist of at least 1 percent of the total lifted ticket flight coupons for all large domestic markets listed in the Instructions and 10 percent for all others—including domestic and international markets. The sample shall be selected and reported in accordance with the requirements of paragraph (a) of their section, except that the participating O & D carriers with nonstandard ticketing procedures, or other special operating characteristics, may propose alternative procedures. Such departures from standard O & D Survey practices shall not be authorized unless approved in writing by the Director, Office of Airline Information under the procedures in Sec. 1-2 of 14 CFR part 241. The data to be recorded and reported from selected lifted ticket flight coupons, as stipulated in the Instructions and Directives shall include the following data elements: Point of origin, carrier on each flight-coupon stage, fare-basis code for each flight-coupon stage, points of stopover or connection (interline and intraline), point of destination, number of passengers, and total dollar value of ticket (fare plus tax).
(d)
Data covering the operations of foreign air carriers that are similar to the information collected in the Passenger Origin-Destination Survey are generally not available to the Department, the U.S. carriers, or U.S. interests. Therefore, because of the damaging competitive impact on U.S. carriers and the adverse effect upon the public interest that would result from unilateral disclosure of the U.S. survey data, the Department has determined its policy to be that the international data in the Passenger Origin-Destination Survey shall be disclosed only as follows:
(1)
To an air carrier directly participating in and contributing input data to the Survey or to a legal or consulting firm designated by an air carrier to use on its behalf O & D data in connection with a specific assignment by such carrier.
(2)
To parties to any proceeding before the Department to the extent that such data are relevant and material to the issues in the proceeding upon a determination to this effect by the Administrative Law Judge or by the Department's decision-maker. Any data to which access is granted pursuant to this section may be introduced into evidence subject to the normal rules of admissability of evidence.
(3)
To agencies and other components of the U.S. Government.
(4)
To other persons upon a showing that the release of the data will serve specifically identified needs of U.S. users which are consistent with U.S. interests.
(5)
To foreign governments and foreign users as provided in formal reciprocal arrangements between the foreign and U.S. governments for the exchange of comparable O & D data.
(e)
The Department reserves the right to make such other disclosures of the O & D data as is consistent with its regulatory functions and responsibilities.
[Reserved]
Code of Federal Regulations
[Amdt. No. 241-55, 52 FR 6529, Mar. 5, 1987, as amended at 60 FR 66723, 66724, Dec. 26, 1995; 62 FR 43280, Aug. 13, 1997; 67 FR 58690, Sept. 18, 2002; 75 FR 41584, July 16, 2010]