DOT ISSUES CONFLICT ZONE FLIGHT PROHIBITION NOTICE
April 2, 2015
On March 19, 2015, at the request of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) issued a Conflict Zone Flight Prohibition Notice.
The notice serves as a reminder of the Department’s February 1995 Order 95-2-34, which requires that existing and future statements of authorizations authorizing foreign air carriers to conduct code-sharing operations on which a U.S. carrier’s code is carried on a foreign carrier’s aircraft include a standard condition that states:
Notwithstanding any provisions in the contract between the carriers, our approval here is expressly conditioned upon the requirement that the operating carrier shall not permit the code of its U.S. code-sharing partner to be carried on any flight that enters, departs, or transits the airspace of any area for whose airspace the Federal Aviation Administration has issued a flight prohibition.
The FAA requested that carriers be reminded of their obligations under Order 95-2-34 due to growing concerns about an increased number of worldwide regional conflict zones. Foreign carriers that carry the code of a U.S. carrier to, from, or over a conflict zone subject to an FAA flight prohibition render themselves liable to enforcement action by DOT.
The FAA currently has flight prohibitions in place for numerous countries, including Afghanistan, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Kenya, North Korea, and Somalia. If you have any questions about which regions are classified by the FAA as “conflict zones” and how the Department’s notice could impact your operations, please feel free to contact us.
If you have any questions, please contact Evelyn Sahr (esahr@eckertseamans.com, 202-659-6622) or Drew Derco (dderco@eckertseamans.com, 202-659-6665).