AA to add LAX-DCA
 

Interesting move....

http://www.johnnyjet.com/2012/02/aa-...ional-airport/

Of course, no significant event happens in LA without the mayor making a boneheaded comment or trying to take credit for it. It's almost as if there was no way to get to DC from LA before now:

Interested to see how AS reacts.

Seems like a nice complement to AS service – AS' flights leave DCA in the morning and leave LAX in the early afternoon, while these new AA flights leave LA in the morning and leave DCA in the evening.

Not surprising in the slightest. AA, DL, UA, and US were each guaranteed exactly one slot pair from DCA to a beyond-perimeter airport (see the discussion in the AA forum). AA's only hub ("cornerstone") beyond the perimeter is LAX, and AA has no interest in non-cornerstone flying these days. I'm virtually certain that there's more than enough demand to fill two daily LAX-DCA nonstops, and it's good news that the AA flight complements (rather than directly competes with) the AS one.

Just hope AS doesn't divert it's lax slot to another sea-dca flight. Need that morning departure out of dca.

Agreed....they're timed perfectly to complement each other. I'm sure they'll both be code-shared, particularly now with AA in bankruptcy and able to do basically whatever they wish when it comes to code-shares. This will definitely be a boon for AS's LAX-DCA flight.

They can't; they'd lose their service. Slots aren't transferrable.

HAH, wow embarassing for him and AS.

This is great news - the departure times are wonderful and flying in and out of DCA is so much better than IAD.

It'd be great if you could take the AA flight out to DCA and the AS flight to LAX on a RT ticket.

Why not book it as two one-ways?

It is currently possible to ticket AA-marketed and AS-marketed flights on the same itinerary, though it usually requires calling AS or getting the AA website to display and ticket the AS flights.

Based on the posted schedule, it looks like AA's DCA-LAX flight will arrive in time to make a legal connection to AS's LAX-SEA and for those so inclined, DL's SEA-MSP and further connections from there. Instead of taking a nonstop DCA-MIA flight and earning 920 EQMs, one could earn 6165 EQMs with this routing, which AS could likely ticket.

Doesn't AA jack up the prices on one ways?

Not on domestic flights.

AA charges a premium for one way travel on some, but not all, domestic fares. It often depends on if competitors are charging a premium for one way travel. AS and WN don't have roundtrip fare requirements, so chances are one way tickets will be priced at half of the roundtrip fare.