American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Frontier Airlines, JetBlue Airways, Southwest Airlines, Spirit Airlines, and United Airlines have made separate applications to the US Department of Transportation (DOT) to obtain some of the slot exemptions for service to Washington National from domestic airports within or beyond the 1,250-mile (2,012-kilometre) perimeter for nonstop flights to/from the airport.
Last month, the DOT published the allocation system for these ten slots, saying it would grant the exemptions in two categories: eight exemptions, or four round trips, for incumbent carriers qualifying as non-limited incumbent airlines: American, Delta, JetBlue, Southwest, and United, and two exemptions, or one round trip, for limited incumbent carriers: Alaska Airlines and Air Canada.
However, Spirit Airlines and Frontier have also staked their claims that they should be included, arguing that they qualify as limited incumbent carriers and that neither Alaska nor Air Canada should be considered; the first because it has an ongoing codeshare with American, putting their total number of slots and slots exemptions above 20 and disqualifying Alaska from participating; and the latter because is a foreign carrier, not able to operate domestic services within the United States from Washington National “as required for the slots being distributed.”
The routes each carrier is looking to obtain and operate from Washington National are:
- American Airlines to fly a daily nonstop service to/from San Antonio International deploying its A321-200s;
- United Airlines for new daily nonstop flights from San Francisco with B737-8s;
- Spirit Airlines for daily flights from San José, US using A320-200Ns;
- Frontier Airlines for daily flights to/from San Juan Luis Muñoz Marin;
- JetBlue to operate an additional flight to/from San Juan with A321-200 and A321-200N aircraft;
- Delta Air Lines for a new nonstop flight to/from Seattle Tacoma International with A320neo and A321neo jets; and
- Southwest Airlines for two of the available slot exemptions to initiate a nonstop service to/from Las Vegas Harry Reid, with continuing single-plane service to Sacramento International with either B737-800s or B737-8s with 175 seats.
Breeze Airways submitted a comment to the DOT saying that if it was considered to participate in the slot allocation process, it “would have satisfied the statutory selection criteria better than any other airline,” adding that it would have introduced nonstop routes to a number of airports servicing state capitals in the western United States such as Boise, Sacramento, Reno/Tahoe, and Albuquerque International.
All interested carriers had until July 8 to complete their applications, and any comments should be filed no later than July 17.
