CARES Act Air Service Exemption for American and Sun Country Airlines Extension

The following press release was published by the U.S. Department of Transportation on July 16, 2020. It is reproduced in full below.

Today, the U.S. Department of Transportation is acting on requests from American Airlines and Sun Country for exemption from the CARES Act airline service obligations announced in Order 2020-4-2. American Airlines requests that the Department grant it an extension from August 19 through September 30 from its service obligation at Kahului, Kona, and Lihue, Hawaii. The Department finds that granting American Airlines’ request is warranted and thus, American Airlines is not obligated to provide service at Kahului, Kona, and Lihue, Hawaii through Sept. 30, 2020. Sun Country requests that the Department reduce its weekly operations at Austin and San Antonio, Texas from three weekly operations to one weekly operation, or in the alternative, enable the carrier to replace two of its exempted points granted by Order 2020-6-2, with Austin and San Antonio. The Department finds that denying Sun Country’s request with respect to both options is warranted, and therefore, Sun Country is obligated to provide three weekly operations at Austin and San Antonio, Texas. The requests and the Notices of Action Taken can be found on www.regulations.gov by searching “Docket-DOT-OST-2020-0037.” The Department continues to review additional requests for exemption as well as the comments being submitted in the docket. Media inquiries should be directed to pressoffice@dot.gov.

Source: U.S. Department of Transportation