Rick From United States of America, joined Dec 1999, 129 posts, RR: 0 Posted (12 years 10 months 3 weeks 2 days 10 hours ago) and read 726 times:
I read in the Washington Post this morning that there were 24 new slots awarded at Regan National (DCA) for flights beyond the traditional 1,250 mile limit. Among the big winners: America West with 2 new round trip flights to it's Phoenix base, 1 round trip flight to Las Vegas, and several other slots. The paper went on to state that John McCain (R-Ariz.) claims he had no influence in the approval of the slots, eventhough he has waged a 2-year campain to get more slots at National Airport beyond the 1,250 mile limit. It is very odd that DELTA Airlines did not even get 1 slot according to the paper. I was sure they would get a slot or two going to Salt Lake City. All of this information I got out of that newspaper, does anyone else have any further insight into this? How in the world was Delta left out?
Lowfareair From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 1, posted (12 years 10 months 3 weeks 2 days 10 hours ago) and read 692 times:
John McCain probably had some influence over this, b/c if tou look at the slot breakdown, AWA, a Phoenix headquartered airline, gets 3 of the six slots(2 PHX, 1 LAS). In addition, nat'l got 1(LAS), TWA got one(LAX), and Frontier got one(DEN).
The slots are to have gone to more start-up carriers, and carriers needing help. That is probably why Delta didn't getr any.
367-80 From United States of America, joined Jul 1999, 51 posts, RR: 0 Reply 2, posted (12 years 10 months 3 weeks 2 days 9 hours ago) and read 672 times:
I noticed that American and United failed to win any slots as well. The winners appeared to be the little guys: ATA, Frontier, America West, TWA (unfortunately now a small fry) and Midwest Express.
This appears to be an attempt to by the DOT to help the smaller carriers compete with the big three--or at least to gain some market share and size to eventually take the big three on head to head. It remains to be seen, however, if dividing so few slots among so many airlines will allow them to create competitive service, or will be too little to take on the giants. I'm sure FL and TW, for instance, would prefer more than a single daily frequency.
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