DOT Awards Regent Air Full Operating Certificate

The Department of Transportation said Monday that it has granted Regent Air a full operating certificate. The agency ruled that the luxury airline’s founders, former Las Vegas casino operators Clifford and Stuart Perlman, “do not have a history of non-compliance with regulatory requirements ultimately sufficient to call into question their fitness.”

The Perlman brothers began a quest to license the Los Angeles-based air service more than two years ago. They had sold their controlling interest in the ownership of Caesars World after New Jersey casino regulators found in 1980 that they were unfit to be licensed there because of dealings with “unsuitable” persons.

Two years ago, the Civil Aeronautics Board ruled against licensing Regent because of the Perlmans’ past troubles, but the board later reopened hearings and allowed it to begin service in conjunction with a charter operator.

Although the Perlmans last July quit Regent’s management and agreed to sell their 60% interest, the DOT ruling says they still “have such a significant financial influence on the company as to constitute control.”

Regent briefly suspended service on its only route--between Newark and Los Angeles--last March before receiving temporary clearance from the DOT, which took over airline regulation on the demise of the CAB last Dec. 31.

In its new ruling agreeing with the finding of a legislative law judge, the DOT says in part:

“The record contains no adjudications or violations of any law or regulation, and no criminal complaints were ever filed against the Perlmans. “While it does not remove all questions of improper conduct in the past, we find that whatever insensitivity to regulatory requirements may have been indicated, it is now outweighed by the age of the events, the passage of time without recurrence and the otherwise satisfactory history of compliance with numerous other regulatory requirements.”

New Jersey had refused to license the Perlmans because of business dealings with Alvin Malnik, who was alleged to be an associate of the late underworld financier Meyer Lansky, and with Samuel Cohen, who was indicted with Lansky in 1971 for allegedly skimming millions of dollars from the Flamingo hotel-casino in Las Vegas.

The charges against Lansky were dismissed because of his poor health. Cohen pleaded guilty in the same case and was sentenced to a year in prison. A Regent announcement Monday of the DOT’s ruling quoted Clifford Perlman as saying: “Stuart and I are very happy with the DOT’s order. These decisions, after exhaustive hearings and evidence, finally lay to rest any questions concerning the fitness of Regent Air and ourselves.”