RJNUT wrote:FlyingElvii wrote:Jshank83 wrote:Can someone give me a breakdown of what part 135 and all the other things are, I am still confused on it
Like why can skywest do EAS but Contour can only do AEAS when skywest has more seats.
I guess I don't understand all the rules.
For now, it is enough to say that the rules are “Flexible”.
DOT is scrambling to find coverage for most of these routes. That could change in the future.
from what i understand nothing is stopping Contour from bidding straight up EAS.. They just landed in AEAS by default by offering communities jet service vs 9 seaters and being directly subsidized by said communities versus DOT
Firstly, I welcome any corrections from those more knowledgeable than me. Here is my understanding:
As we know SkyWest is a Part 121 operator and Contour is a Part 135 operator.
Part 121 operators, of course, can operate any size of aircraft on scheduled flights provided they successfully add the type to their certificate - no seat limits beyond the aircraft's limits.
Part 135 operators, who have been granted approval for scheduled services, can operate scheduled flights in aircraft with up to
nine seats. This is what Boutique and Southern do. (As an aside, if a Part 135 carrier doesn't have approval for scheduled service they can still operate 4 scheduled roundtrips per week, but that is useless for EAS.)
BUT(!), a Part 135 operator can operate
charter flights in aircraft with up to
30 seats. Next is where we get a cool loophole.
Alternative EAS (AEAS) was started (I think) to allow non-airline entities to bid on EAS services with the approval of the community. I think the spirit of the concept was that a travel agency/trip organizing company would be awarded the contract and then they would contract with an aircraft operator(s) (ie. charter an aircraft) to actually fly the services. The resulting flights would be subject to the rules of DOT Part (not FAR Part) 380 as public charters (scheduled charter flights).
Public charters under DOT 380 are subject to their own set of rules such as prospectuses filed with DOT a certain period in advance and passenger funds held in escrow until the flight operates. BUT, since they are
chartered flights, Part 135 operators can fly their 30-seat aircraft versus being limited to 9 seats if they were flying it on their own.
Now since there is no rule to stop it, a Part 135 operator like Contour can just start a separate company that acts as the "travel agency" to charter the aircraft from the sister company while selling seats on the public charter flights (in fact, back when Contour was called Corporate Flight Management the brand used for their flights to Manistee, MI was literally "Public Charters").
Operating under Part 135, as has been discussed, is attractive for many reasons including the lack of pilot age limits, fewer experience requirements, etc. A case study could be Great Lakes Airlines which operated strictly as a Part 121 for most of its existence and then during its downfall ripped seats out of the B1900s so it could operate them Part 135 with 9 seats and benefit from the more lax crew qualification requirements. If they'd been under AEAS flying public charters, they wouldn't have needed to take any seats out of the 19-seat Beech and could have even operated the E120 with its 30 seats as 135.
We see DAC operating a split 121/135 operation now, too, with the ERJs on 121 and the 9-seat Metro on the 135 certificate.
So with that background, I have two final points.
As a Part 135, if Contour were to bid "straight up" EAS they could only do so with aircraft 9 seats or less (assuming they have approval for scheduled flights already), unless they got a Part 121 certificate and then could operate their existing 30-seat fleet.
For SkyWest to make this proposal of 30 seat jet service under Part 135 come true:
They'd need to get some 30 seat aircraft and a Part 135 certificate (both probably not too challenging)
Communities would need to agree to switch to AEAS.
A "third-party" (which could be owned by SkyWest) would need to organize the public charters under Part 380 and handle the requirements such as escrow, etc.
Hope this is a helpful explanation. Note: I have only discussed limitations on seats for Part 135 operators and not talked about aircraft weights as I am not so clear on the matter and have seen some fairly large aircraft operated under 135.
EDIT: I see drdisque and MO11 beat me while I was writing this thesis
I will leave this here as further reference.