Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan - AS requesting additonal DCA slots

I did not see anything posted on this earlier.

http://www.alaskasworld.com/NEWS/2004/01/09_DCA-LAXslots.asp

Alaska Airlines today applied for additional slots at Washington, D.C.’s Reagan National Airport, with the aim of adding two more daily nonstop roundtrips between Seattle and the capital city, and inaugurating service between Los Angeles and DCA with two daily nonstop roundtrips. Employees can help in the effort to win approval from the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Anyone know if AS wins more slots to SEA if those will replace the IAD service or complement it?

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by whlinder:
Anyone know if AS wins more slots to SEA if those will replace the IAD service or complement it?</font>


I hope that it would compliment the service. Our IAD service is fairly succesful. We carry a number of passengers connecting to other flights on other airlines from IAD, they would lose that revenue if they switched the service to DCA.

I think it is highly unlikely that there will be additional Seattle-DCA flights until some other west coast cities are accomodated, like LAX and SFO. Alaska also applied for LAX, but why they didn't for SFO as well is somewhat bewildering. Heck, even Aloha Airlines applied for nonstop DCA-Orange County flights.

I agree that AS should have applied for SFO as well. I just wonder if they were to win the 2 DCA-SEA slots if 5 AS nonstops plus 3 UA nonstops would oversaturate the market and cause AS to pull flights from IAD.

I hope they only win 1 more DCA slot for this reason, 2 flights to each airport would work nicely IMHO... and of course I hope they win some LAX slots, which would then be complemented by IAD-LAX hopefully http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

Most of the distance waivers from DCA have been given to carriers flying to a hub - e.g., DL to SLC, HP to PHX, and F9 to DEN. The rationale is that the flight will serve a lot more people and a lot more destinations that way.

Therefore, in my opinion, if DCA-SFO is awarded, it would more likely go to UA, whose SFO hub serves Asia and many smaller west coast cities.

[This message has been edited by JerryFF (edited Jan 14, 2004).]

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by JerryFF:

Therefore, in my opinion, if DCA-SFO is awarded, it would more likely go to UA, whose SFO hub serves Asia and many smaller west coast cities.
</font> It's unlikely an exemption for DCA-SFO will be awarded to anyone since last I checked no one had applied for the route.

Looking through the docket filings, it's rather sad to see how Alaska (and other airlines') supporters have sent the DoT copies of the airlines suggested form letters. What are they thinking? That the DoT will somehow by swayed in their favor if they spam them enough?


[This message has been edited by Quokka (edited Jan 14, 2004).]

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Quokka:
Looking through the docket filings, it's rather sad to see how Alaska (and other airlines') supporters have sent the DoT copies of the airlines suggested form letters. What are they thinking? That the DoT will somehow by swayed in their favor if they spam them enough?


[This message has been edited by Quokka (edited Jan 14, 2004).]</font>


That's exactly what they're thinking, since it has proven successful in the past.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by WebTraveler:
I think it is highly unlikely that there will be additional Seattle-DCA flights until some other west coast cities are accomodated, like LAX and SFO. Alaska also applied for LAX, but why they didn't for SFO as well is somewhat bewildering. Heck, even Aloha Airlines applied for nonstop DCA-Orange County flights.</font>

It shouldn't be too bewildering. AS doesn't have a hub at SFO, but it does at LAX. Count in all the AA codeshare service and the scope of LAX is far more beneifical then SFO.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2"> It's unlikely an exemption for DCA-SFO will be awarded to anyone since last I checked no one had applied for the route.
</font>

I believe UA and US have both applied for this route.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by sxf24:
I believe UA and US have both applied for this route.</font>Yep, indeed they have. The DoT's Document Management System now has a slew of new applications dated Jan 9th.

The applicants and routes are so far are:

US DCA-SFO
US DCA-San Juan

Aloha DCA-SNA

HP DCA-PHX/LAX "or in the alternative DCA-PHX/LAX/SFO"

DL DCA-SLC

AA DCA-LAX

UA DCA-DEN
UA DCA-SFO

F9 DCA-DEN

AS DCA-SEA
AS DCA-LAX

Primaris Airlines DCA-LAX

If you're wondering who the heck Primaris is, their application can be found at:

http://dmses.dot.gov/docimages/p77/264431.doc

or

http://dmses.dot.gov/docimages/pdf88/264431_web.pdf for MS Word haters.

and their website is at:

http://www.primarisairlines.com

Jet Blue is notably absent from the list of applicants.




[This message has been edited by Quokka (edited Jan 14, 2004).]

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by RASMguy:
It shouldn't be too bewildering. AS doesn't have a hub at SFO, but it does at LAX. Count in all the AA codeshare service and the scope of LAX is far more beneifical then SFO.

</font>


I am not so sure LAX is a hub, per se. They do have many flights routing through there, with connections to Mexico flights most of the connections. But you can also connect to Mexico flights via SFO as well.

Why not apply for SFO as well and see what happens? What is there to really lose?

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by JerryFF:
[B]
Therefore, in my opinion, if DCA-SFO is awarded, it would more likely go to UA, whose SFO hub serves Asia and many smaller west coast cities.

[B]</font>

USAIR also operates a mini-hub so to speak at DCA and could offer many east coast connections through DCA to SFO, and at the same time USAir is a UA partner, still enabling all sorts of code-share opportunities all over the place.

Personally, I think that the DCA-LAX route will be awarded to US Air because of the large access of connecting destinations. BUT, on the other hand, US did apply for flights to San Juan, Asheville NC, and Chattanooga TN, so maybe DOT will be willing to evenly award new routes among the airlines. On a side note, in the event that US does aquire the four new nonstops, then DCA could be considered as something more of an actual hub, rather than a mini-hub, as US would serve some 25 odd cities or so.

Also, although I agree with you Webtraveler that LAX is not an actual AS hub, on Continental, and I think NW websites, both carriers describe Alaska as an airline serving hubs in Anchorage, SEA, Portland, and Los Angeles.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by WebTraveler:
USAIR also operates a mini-hub so to speak at DCA and could offer many east coast connections through DCA to SFO, and at the same time USAir is a UA partner, still enabling all sorts of code-share opportunities all over the place.</font>

and

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by GotCalcio4:
Personally, I think that the DCA-LAX route will be awarded to US Air because of the large access of connecting destinations.</font>

US Air's current presence at DCA is the exactly the reason US probably *won't* be awarded any of the new "beyond the perimeter" exception slots. Anyone interested in handicapping the applicants should take a look at the selection criteria and past DoT decisions.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by WebTraveler:

I am not so sure LAX is a hub, per se. They do have many flights routing through there, with connections to Mexico flights most of the connections. But you can also connect to Mexico flights via SFO as well.
</font>

We clasify LAX as a hub. Factor in our partner carriers and you get service from DCA to RNO, MEX, SBA, SBP, MRY, FAT, SFO, SJC, LAS, MFR, EUG, BOI, PSP, and HNL.

Any reason why AS did not apply for a PDX-DCA daily? One would think with 6 slots to give out that the DOT might be inclined to award one for PDX. You've also got North Bend/Coos Bay, Klamath Falls, and Pendelton in Oregon plus Eureka/Arcata and Redding in Northern California that would be new cities with one-stop service to DCA. I would think that the DOT would prefer to increase to the number of non-stop and 1 stop cities that can reach DCA instead of adding frequencies to PHX or LAS or DEN or SEA...