Originally Posted by ashill

It wouldn't shock me if DL is engaging in some gamesmanship here, thinking that ATL is their strongest case (since they knew that AA would also apply for LAX) and thus likely to be awarded anyway. I wonder if it will come back to bite them if the DOT has had enough of DL's shenanigans with HND in general and awards LAX-HND to AA, then sees MSP as a bogus request with very little local traffic. And if DL didn't get their second choice, why give them their third?

Although maybe MSP does make sense since ATL doesn't have a ton of local traffic anyway and, as jrkmsp pointed out, MSP serves more connecting cities logically. In fact, with only MSP and DFW requested in the interior of the country and MSP being better-located geographically for connections, maybe MSP does stand a chance after all.

I'm surprised that neither DL nor AA requested JFK and that nobody requested ORD.