U.S. Departments of Commerce, State, and Transportation Seek Stakeholder Input on Gulf Carriers Subsidy Claims

The U.S. Departments of Commerce, State, and Transportation are reviewing claims that three foreign airlines – Emirates Airline, Etihad Airways, and Qatar Airways – have received and are benefitting from subsidies from their respective governments of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Qatar that are distorting the global aviation market. The claims, which are asserted in a publicly available report, are of significant interest to stakeholders and all three Federal agencies. The U.S. government takes seriously the concerns raised in the report and is interested in receiving insights and feedback from stakeholders before any decisions are made regarding what action, if any, should be taken. Accordingly, consistent with the Obama Administration’s Open Government Initiative and commitment to transparency, public participation, and collaboration, the three Departments are announcing the establishment of an open forum by which any interested stakeholder may submit information regarding their views on this subject and have access to the information submitted by other interested stakeholders.

Beginning today, any interested person or group may submit information, responses to existing materials, or any other analysis that they might wish to provide the U.S. government on this subject on the www.regulations.gov website. Each Department will have a corresponding number – listed below – on www.regulations.gov, and all submissions will be reviewed jointly by the interagency team.  All correspondence received by the Departments after the issuance of this notice will be considered part of this submission process and will be posted in www.regulations.gov for the benefit of the public, unless the submitter has requested and been granted confidential treatment of commercial information by the Departments. To the extent allowed by law, the Departments will protect trade secrets and confidential commercial or financial information from disclosure, and will follow their established procedures under the Freedom of Information Act, Executive Order 12600, and the relevant Department regulations for handling requests that seek disclosure of confidential business information.  

Any stakeholder that has previously submitted letters on this matter to the Departments can also submit such previous correspondence to the www.regulations.gov website. All material posted will be deemed to be public and freely accessible by any interested person. 

The three Departments encourage submissions to be made as soon as practicable, as review of any new material submitted to the joint docket is expected to begin by the end of May, to supplement the U.S. government’s ongoing review and evaluation of this matter. 

To submit a comment, please visit www.regulations.gov and enter one of the below docket numbers in the search field:

• DOT-OST-2015-0082
• DOS-2015-0016
• DOC-2015-0001

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