DCA Slots

They need a couple more to develop a large enough presence to impact the market but it is a good start and good for the Houston market.
 
The question now is, will AA and or US have to give up some more slots for the merger to go thru? I do remember GK saying something about trying to get more if this was to happen.
 
I think you could safely bet the rent money that AA/US will have to divest some slots. Between the two of us we hold a good majority of the slots currently. I also think that you could safely bet that a low-cost carrier--such as, WN--will get all or most of the divested slots.
 
swamt said:
The question now is, will AA and or US have to give up some more slots for the merger to go thru? I do remember GK saying something about trying to get more if this was to happen.
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I am old enough to think Laker Airways when I see GK. (And Frontier for FL)! :rolleyes: You probably meant G4 (Allegiant)?
 
Wow, 1 slot!!!! If USAir is required to divest slots, it will NOT increase competition at DCA. All it will do is shift flights to other airports. Smaller communities will suffer a loss in air service and an increase in fares. Amazing all SWA has to do is snap its fingers and it gets its way.....
 
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lpbrian said:
Wow, 1 slot!!!! If USAir is required to divest slots, it will NOT increase competition at DCA. All it will do is shift flights to other airports. Smaller communities will suffer a loss in air service and an increase in fares. Amazing all SWA has to do is snap its fingers and it gets its way.....
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Make that two slots, one for an arrival and one for a departure. I'll disagree with your assumption that a decrease in USAir slots will NOT increase competition. I think quite the opposite. Also, what smaller communities will suffer a loss of air service? Did you witness those 'finger snaps' and are you miffed about visiting OKC and watching tornados? They'll be on TV!
 
The increase in competition will indeed come as other carriers will be able to add service to DCA.

US can make the argument that small communities will lose air service and there is probably truth to it... but it doesn't change that in a slot-controlled airport w/ no meaningful way for carriers to grow, one carrier cannot control 75% of the flights.
The irony of all of this is that US swapped slots with DL at LGA, ended up with a smaller set of swapped slots at DCA than DL got at LGA, and will likely now have to divest a portion of the slots it swapped with DL. At the same time

Even though DL's share of slots at LGA is about 7% less than what US alone has at DCA, DL's share of seats at LGA is only about one percent lower meaning that DL is using its slots more efficiently at LGA than US is at DCA.
AA controls another 12% or so of DCA's seats.
That is the argument that regulators and competitors will make regarding the need for AA/US to divest.
One company could certainly argue that if they had all the slots available they could provide service to more cities but there is something about being able to use scarce resources efficiently and in doing so in such a way that other carriers can successfully compete.

The US industry is consolidating and regulators will not accept that B6 and WN will have such a smaller percent of the available slots and seats at DCA.

WN should indeed be able to pick up a few more slots but unlike in other cases, divestitures should be done in such a way to increase the amount of service to the most cities and not just shift slots from one carrier to another.
 
Parker told the U.S. Chamber of Commerce aviation summit that while the merged company would control two-thirds of the slots at Reagan, it would control only 25% of the slots in the Washington region with Dulles and Baltimore airports.

If one looks at the total number of seats flying out of Reagan National, Parker said, the new American Airlines will represent about half — "nothing remotely resembling anything violating antitrust law."
 
Except the DOT required DL to divest 16 slots at LGA as part of the slot transaction and DL does not control even half of the slots at LGA and even fewer at JFK.

The simple fact is that DCA and LGA are the preferred airports for local inside-the-perimeter cities and DL and US created a transaction which further strengthened their positions thru the slot transaction. The DOT and DOJ said that slots had to be divested and DL and US complied.

US has now committed to merging with AA which has about 12% of the slots at DCA on top of the 55% or so of slots that US already had, giving the new AA a very large percentage of slots. There is no way the DOT and DOJ cannot help but act to inject new competition into the market.

It is up to US to figure out how to use even the 55% of slots it currently has to serve the nation's capital well.

Even if the DOT/DOJ require even 16 slots divested, US will still end up w/ a higher percentage of slots than DL did at LGA.

Further, the point remains that RJ operations at slot controlled airports use a lot of slots that would be used by low fare carriers who use larger aircraft. Network/legacy carriers that have large numbers of slots ta slot-controlled airports have a responsibility to use those slots as efficiently as possible and ensure that there are plenty left over for other carriers, esp. low (or lower) fare carriers that serve to provide pricing discipline.

There needs to be a slot divestiture and it needs to involve at least 16 flights/day... if WN ends up with even 1/4 of those slots it will be a bonanza for them.

and isn't out of the realm of possibility that DL or UA might be involved in acquiring slots at DCA perhaps even thru trades for other industry assets.
 
According to DCA's own statistics US only has 19.1% of DCA market share with all its flights as of 11/12.

Republic has 13.6%

Air Wisconsin has 6.7%

PSA has 3.6%

So US has a total of 43% of the passengers in DCA.

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCwQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.metwashairports.com%2Ffile%2FTab_C-4__November_2012_Traffic_Report.pdf&ei=6-aLUeyLLfGv4APDzYB4&usg=AFQjCNHvhT6TXB5-MO8TNu6oxmQ2o-lgyA&sig2=ZyDS-cvMEAxysHwUoCVOFw&bvm=bv.46340616,d.dmg&cad=rja
 
700UW said:
According to DCA's own statistics US only has 19.1% of DCA market share with all its flights as of 11/12.

Republic has 13.6%

Air Wisconsin has 6.7%

PSA has 3.6%

So US has a total of 43% of the passengers in DCA.

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCwQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.metwashairports.com%2Ffile%2FTab_C-4__November_2012_Traffic_Report.pdf&ei=6-aLUeyLLfGv4APDzYB4&usg=AFQjCNHvhT6TXB5-MO8TNu6oxmQ2o-lgyA&sig2=ZyDS-cvMEAxysHwUoCVOFw&bvm=bv.46340616,d.dmg&cad=rja
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