Union Flights, Inc., a California Corporation v. Administrator, Federal Aviation Administration

Union Flights, Inc. petitions for review of an order of the National Transportation Safety Board (Board), which dismissed as untimely Union Flights’ appeal from a decision of an administrative law judge (AU). We find that the Board’s rule allowing fifty days to file a brief in support of an appeal from an oral decision of an AU, and only thirty days for filing such a brief after a written decision, to be rational, and that the Board’s change of policy requiring “good cause” for failure to observe the time limits was properly effected by adjudicative ruling. Accordingly, we affirm.

I

On April 6, 1989, the Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued an emergency order suspending Union Flights’ air carrier operating certificate. See 49 U.S.C. app. § 1429(a). The order was based on Union Flights’ alleged failure to provide FAA inspectors access to its business records. On April 7, 1989, the FAA terminated the suspension after Union Flights agreed to allow the FAA to inspect its facility, equipment, personnel, and records.

Union Flights appealed the emergency order of suspension to the National Transportation Safety Board. Administrative Law Judge Jerrell Davis…