Eight airlines are duking it out for the five additional daily roundtrip slot pairs that the DOT is authorized to award for flights beyond the 1,250-mile perimeter at Washington Reagan National Airport.
The five slots are to be awarded pursuant to the new five-year FAA reauthorization, which President Biden signed into law in May. Those flights will join the 20 daily roundtrips that are already exempted from the Washington Reagan perimeter.
American, United, Delta, Alaska, Southwest, JetBlue, Spirit and Frontier have each applied for an authorization.
American, which is the dominant carrier at Reagan National, is seeking approval for daily San Antonio service, a route on which it would be the only operator.
United is seeking authorization to fly a second daily service between Reagan National and San Francisco. The flight would compete with existing daily Alaska Airlines service. As a backup, United has said it would accept an authorization for Los Angeles service instead.
Delta wants to connect Reagan National with its hub in Seattle, a route that would compete with existing twice-daily Alaska Airlines service.
Alaska wants to initiate Reagan National-San Diego flights, a route on which it would be the lone operator.
Southwest has requested permission to fly from the D.C.-area airport to Las Vegas, and then on to Sacramento, Calif., competing with daily American service on the Las Vegas leg.
Finally, JetBlue, Frontier and Spirit are each seeking approval to operate San Juan flights from Reagan National. JetBlue currently operates one daily flight between those airports.
Beyond-the-perimeter slot pairs up for grabs
The DOT plans to award four of the beyond-the-perimeter slot pairs to airlines that already hold more than 20 daily roundtrip flight authorizations at Reagan National.
American, United, Delta, Southwest and JetBlue will compete for those authorizations, per the guidelines the department put forward in a June 24 notice that established guidelines for the selection proceedings.
The remaining slot pair will go to an airline that currently flies to Reagan National but holds less than 20 daily roundtrip authorizations. Per the stipulated DOT guidelines, only Alaska qualifies to apply for that slot pair. Spirit isn’t eligible because it does not currently fly to Reagan National. Frontier does serve the airport three-times daily from Denver. But per the statute that governs the Reagan National perimeter rules, only flights within the 1,250-mile perimeter can qualify an airline for formal status as an incumbent operator at the airport.
In filings, Spirit and Frontier have argued that the DOT is misapplying the statute.
Applications for the new beyond-the-perimeter slots were required to be submitted by July 8.
Interested parties can still submit comments on the applications through July 17.
The FAA reauthorization bill stipulated that the DOT should allocate the slots within 60 days of the bill’s passage, a time frame that has already passed.
