The Department of Transportation’s (DOT) choices for the airlines for the empty slots at Reagan National Airport in Washington have left some carriers unhappy.
JetBlue Airways and Frontier Airlines have publicly expressed their disappointment, while Spirit has even hinted at litigation.
The available slots were awarded to American, Delta, Alaska, Southwest and United.
The slots at Reagan National are under the auspices of the federal government, and few carriers are chosen that exceed the 1,250-mile perimeter from the airport. Obviously, Alaska Airlines, which is based in Seattle, exceeds that. Frontier has filed an objection with the DOT over that very reasoning. Frontier also argued that because Alaska and American have a codeshare agreement, they do not qualify for a new slot.
“Despite Spirit raising this issue on June 26, 2024, prior to Alaska submitting its application on July 8, 2024, and both Spirit and Frontier raising it in their applications for slots in this proceeding, Alaska did not address this issue in its application or subsequent comments in this proceeding,” Frontier’s objection read.
The relationship between Alaska and American apparently does not include any slot-sharing provisions.
Frontier had applied to operate a route between Luis Munoz Marin International Airport in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Reagan National.
Spirit argued that the DOT’s finding that Alaska did not receive any meaningful access to Reagan National via its relationship with American was not valid.
“Any federal Court of Appeals almost assuredly would find such a statement as lacking substantial evidentiary support and therefore arbitrary and capricious,” Spirit said.
JetBlue accused the DOT of not living up to its mantra.
“Despite broad proclamations and promises to make airline competition policy a top priority, DOT’s actual track record has inflicted on the traveling public the opposite of what it claims to be doing: it continues to make already dominant carriers even stronger, while preventing smaller carriers from growing and thus comparatively weakening them,” JetBlue said.
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