Originally Posted by
epiding
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Divestiture of slots would be absolutely required. I'm predicting UA gets the most, DL gets some (but not too much cuz its already 70% more than UA), and all the other smaller carriers get a lot more.
I think UA will have a hard time getting any, between being #4 at DCA already and being so large at IAD. Any lawyer for the other airlines will argue that any divested slots should go to carriers below the major legacies.
But keep in mind the antitrust issue isn't passengers, it's city-pairs. I haven't looked at the route maps from DCA, but what will drive the analysis is city-pair overlaps.
From what I can tell, AA has a limited number of non-stops from DCA, designed to serve their hubs in JFK, MIA,ORD, DFW, LAX, plus Portland, Nashville, and St. Louis. They may have to give up a few slots on those, but otherwise the overlaps are limited.
Originally Posted by
Mike Jacoubowsky
Why? I'm neither tourist nor airport employee, but visit DC on a regular basis for work (bicycle lobby). Why wouldn't a business person take the metro when it connects IAD to downtown DC? Improved predictability, similar or shorter travel time to taxi (and likely much faster when traffic is heavy), no need to rent a car. What am I missing?
1) Metro is increasingly unreliable, so not sure about predictability
2) I don't know if the Metro, with a bunch of stops, will be faster than a taxi, except at rush hour on I-66. Not to mention it depends whether your destination is near metro.
3) No one who is going into DC itself would rent a car--that's just crazy. And if you need to rent a car, it's likely Metro wouldn't get you where you're going.
Metro to DCA is useful if you work downtown. It's 15-20 minutes, and is quicker than a taxi at rush hour. Not to mention it gets you right to the terminal.