The U.S. Department of Transportation is charged with the responsibility of determining "fitness" of air carriers and applicants to be air carriers in the United States. Their analysis includes a wide spectrum of considerations, and requires irrefutable documentation to support the air carrier's fitness.
Baltia Air Lines has met the D.O.T.'s strict requirements on more than one occasion, and they are well-equipped to ascertain the applicant's ongoing ability to maintain their "fitness", including their having Baltia both periodically update their financial information and the recency of experience requirement of its key personnel - they look much deeper than a simple bank account snapshot on the day of a particular filing.
The DOT's monitoring of the applicant is thorough,- to maintain highly experienced personnel to meet the 5 positions required under FAR 119 - Dir. of Operations, Chief Pilot, Dir. of Maintenance, Chief Inspector, and Dir. of Safety. These people must meet not only overall experience, licenses, and other qualifications, they must meet the recency of experience criteria as well. Baltia's people meet these strict requirements.
As far as financial fitness goes, the D.O.T. has strict requirements to protect the public from a carrier getting into operation without the resources to operate a minimum period (months) of time without a penny of revenue - and Baltia meets these requirements.
Balita's certification will move along, and my industry sources tell me that the regulatory resources necessary to proceed, are being allocated. An air carrier in FAR 121 certification on the west coast just recently was moved forward in the process after two years of work and having slowed down, and it is not a coincidence that this improvement occurred just following a congressional member's inquiry about their certification.
I assume that we are all hopeful and supportive of Baltia getting up and operating soon. I invested in Baltia years ago, have monitored their progress by talking with them from time to time, talking with regulatory sources (I am a Dir. of Operations with a scheduled air carrier on the west coast, and been in this industry over 35 years.), and I attended the most recent Baltia shareholder meeting.
We all here want Baltia to succeed, right?
AI
