Comments on: Delta and US Airways Cancel Slot Swap, Feds Lose Game of Chicken, Win Cranky Jackass Award

By: Delta’s Growth in Washington Smells Fishy - >> The Cranky Flier

Delta’s Growth in Washington Smells Fishy - >> The Cranky Flier — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 10:47:00 +0000

[...] It’s the increase at Washington/National that has me perplexed. As we all know by now, Delta and US Airways were trying to arrange a slot swap where Delta would give most of its slots to US Airways at National in exchange for US Airways slots [...]

By: JamesK

JamesK — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 16:08:19 +0000

To your point, Brett, for ages the slots weren’t even transferable between regional carriers. ASA operated a single CAE-LGA flight and a handful of flights from DCA (HSV, JAN, etc) before the gummint decided that it was permissible for Delta to shift the flying to Comair without putting the slot back up for sale.

And yes, I once had to deal with a staffer of a Congresswoman from Kentucky who missed her swearing in thanks to a misconnect caused by a mechanical. Staffer was lovely, but I sincerely hope the honorable member learned something about flight planning.

By: Mark

Mark — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 00:43:12 +0000

You really should note that four of the markets that US Airways was planning to add – Birmingham, Montreal, Ottawa and Tallahassee – are getting new service anyway. And Delta is going ahead with new service from LaGuardia to Nashville and St. Louis.

Clearly, the slot swap isn’t stopping the airlines from adding service to these markets.

Consumers would have lost if the transaction was approved by way of giving Delta and US Airways far too much pricing power in the LaGuardia and Reagan markets, respectively. Who cares if AirTran would have gotten five slots when that’s simply not enough more to make it competitive in the LaGuardia market.

By: JP

JP — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 23:38:18 +0000

Well, we all know that Obama and his minions know that a flight from DCA-BFE will create a new job in BFE…sure, 10 jobs will be lost due to decreased productivity, but Obama will claim the extra TSA employee at BFE.

It’s time to let the market make the decisions.

By: Greg

Greg — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 23:24:48 +0000

Let’s face it, Washington has too much power. I promise you if any airline offered direct service to Congressman X’s hometown from DCA, the deal would be approved.

We no longer care about the free market (if I don’t like an airline’s offerings from airport Y I’ll drive to airport Z and fly airline N). No, no we expect that every airline should offer 1998 prices my city to where I want to go, oh, and if I have a powerful congressman, I should get a discount.

We don’t want airlines to make money, because only the government should make money and it should dictate all aspect’s of our lives.

BTW, do you know what the worst investment you could have made in the last 20 years was? It’s an airline. Very few and lucky have ever made a profit offf of airline investments.

Let’s let them actually go at it, let the market decide winners and losers, not some holier than thou Congressman who insists that he should have a direct flight to Podunk Iowa

By: CF

CF — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 21:18:15 +0000

Well, isn’t that how Southwest got into LaGuardia? Picked up ATA’s slots by buying them in bankruptcy, I believe.

By: JayB

JayB — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 15:37:16 +0000

Along these lines, I see today’s (Wednesday) Washington Post has a front page, above-the-fold, Lisa Rein story: “Flight restrictions at National targeted.” Discusses attempts by various politicians to limit, not-to-limit, activity at DCA and revise the perimeter rules. FAA authorization bill language, etc.

I remember reading stories about this issue in the late ’60s. Moving on…!

By: JayB

JayB — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 15:19:34 +0000

Seriously, I jest! Hard to tell sometimes, isn’t it.

I’m sure somewhere out there in blogger land someone is saying: “OMG, another idiot demanding his $99 fare!” Whatever!

By: tharanga

tharanga — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 13:53:09 +0000

as it stands, it’s just an interline, but everybody including the airlines themselves are making it sound like a bigger deal than that. So maybe it’s an interline backed by more marketing than normal.

By: tharanga

tharanga — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 13:50:33 +0000

Yes, that’s true. You need a waiver to exchange LGA slots, and the DOT is putting strings on the waiver.

As for slots being available: note that the jetblue-AA deal was a slot swap. When was the last time slots were exchanged for cash? I’m curious. A new entrant might have cash, but not have slots at other airports to trade.