Originally Posted by
mnbp
DOT cares about the travelling public, not individual carriers. It seems clear that the travelling public would be better served by three viable carriers / joint venture partnerships serving HND vs two. For this reason the DL case for three slot pairs seems the only way DOT could balance the US48-HND market. If DOT doesn't award DL three slots, wouldn't that leave only two carriers / partnerships serving the vast majority of the US48-HND market? What would that do to prices? That would be DOTs main concern I believe.
It depends whether they think primarily balancing the US48-HND or the US48-TYO market is most important for the traveling public. If they care about the US48-TYO market, DL is significantly larger than AA+JL and not much smaller than UA+NH.
Irrespective, I think the DOT will care more about geographic distribution of the flights operated by US airlines (which means I don't predict that both AA and DL will get/keep LAX), and perhaps DL's history of underutilizing and obstructing the utility of HND for the traveling public, than giving special consideration to DL to maximize their HND slots.