Background
According to the application, Pacific presently holds Passenger Stage Corporation Certificate PSC-1411, authorizing service to various points in Orange County, including Disneyland, Knott's Berry Farm, the Movieland Wax Museum, Newport Beach, and the South Coast Plaza Shopping Center in Costa Mesa.
In addition to PSC-1411, Pacific also holds a Class A Charter-Party Certificate and a round-trip sightseeing permit under TCP-1411-A and S. Pacific also holds federal authority to provide interstate and foreign charter and special operations service nationwide under Docket MC-184852.
As we recently observed in Decision (D.) 00-06-073 (mimeo. June 22, 2000), Pacific is a wholly owned subsidiary of Coach, USA, a rapidly growing nationwide holding company that owns a variety of passenger transportation businesses, including taxicab, paratransit, and airport shuttle services. Coach is the largest provider of motorcoach charter, tour, and sightseeing services in the United States, and says that its mission is to expand this position. In D.00-06-073, we found that Pacific is financially and operationally fit to operate a more extensive scheduled service between Los Angeles and Orange County area airports and points in Orange County, and approved its request to do so.1
Pacific presently operates a shuttle of the precise nature it proposes to operate if the application is granted, except that the current shuttle operates under the sponsorship of local area hotels and Disneyland. Pacific describes the history of the present service in its application as follows:
1 The application in question is currently pending consideration of requests for rehearing by The Airport Bus and Airport Cruiser."Many years ago, . . . as the attendance at DISNEYLAND increased, a `Shuttle-Type' service between near-by hotels, motels, restaurants and other near-by attractions developed, whereby several small Charter carriers . . . chartered their vehicles for transportation between the hotels/motels/ restaurants and DISNEYLAND, with service available all day long, and with the final return trip from DISNEYLAND based upon DISNEYLAND'S evening closing time. The sponsoring hotels/motels paid a fixed amount to these Charter bus companies on a shared or cooperative Charter basis. During DISNEYLAND'S major renovations - commencing in 1997 and scheduled to be completed in 2001 - this Charter Service underwent a consolidation, and currently all of this Chartered shuttle service is being performed by [Pacific], as the successor to several other previous service providers." (Application pp. 5-6.)
