beyondhere

When has this happened before? Those beyond-perimeter authority slots are hard to get and require Congress to initiate the action.

Not to veer too much to Southwest discussion, but Southwest would do this already with the number of slots and the struggling in-perimeter DCA markets that is has as well. It can't fly to it's western hubs DEN/PHX/LAS/SAN either from DCA, so slots are used for IND and CMH but these markets to DCA are more a loss leader. Load factors are low on those new DCA flights to IND and CMH. Southwest pretty much keeps IAD open for that DEN-IAD flight service.

I'm sure AS will try out DAL-LGA/DCA on it's own metal, for a year and evaluate it's performance. If pax choose to fly DAL-LGA/DCA and earn AA miles, it might create an uptick of pax that weren't flying VX. I don't think AS wants to downsize their NY market footprint and sell off slots, but if there was a trade for EWR gates, and if DAL-LGA was underperforming after a year on AS metal, I wonder if DAL-EWR would suffice.

sullim4

Ding ding ding.

Given the choice between connecting at DFW or connecting at DAL... why would you ever choose DAL? If you miss your connection, you're essentially screwed and will have to wait a long time for the next flight. DFW has many more options and is a fortress hub of an AS partner... and honestly, in my experience anyway, is a pretty decent airport to connect in. Certainly better than ATL, ORD, or LAX.

Dallas as a city has enough O&D traffic to support flights from cities like SEA, LAX, SFO, etc. It also provides value for AA's customers who might not want to trek out to DFW for flights to the PNW, they could take DAL-SEA and connect to a Horizon flight.

tusphotog

I've said this before: Love is a fantastic airport if you're in Dallas (especially downtown Dallas).

If you're in the east side of the Dallas area, Ft. Worth, Arlington it's not as convenient. On my trips to town, I usually end up flying in to one and out of the other. It makes sense that AS would want to maintain a presence at both airports. It's a luxury only one other carrier has at the moment.

That route won't come back until someone gives up a beyond the perimeter slot.

eponymous_coward

And that carrier can only get you to ATL out of DAL.

I think the tell will be if AS decides to run SEA/LAX/SFO-DFW/DAL to the "big three" hubs.

In theory AS could switch one of their existing slots, but given that AS at SEA has more slots than SFO/LAX/PDX, and you'd be dropping a market if you did one of the non-SEA slots... I don't see it.

Chugach

VX used to have some DAL-AUS flights that flopped, which might explain the slack in their current DAL schedule.

Fanjet

It was done earlier in the decade. It's how US was able to start DCA-SAN (which is now a 2nd AA DCA-LAX flight); UA was able to start DCA-SFO; and DL able to add a 2nd DCA-SLC flight (which will now be a DCA-LAX flight).

Fanjet

Exactly. There used to be 4 daily VX flights from LGA to DAL. Now they are down to 3. And looking at flights within the next 30 days, some of those flights can be booked for only $69 one-way. I'm not sure keeping an expensive station like LGA open for just 3 daily flights to one city (which isn't even a hub) is a wise decision.

In a perfect world of aircraft utilization, you can probable squeeze out 16-17 daily flights, maybe 18 max, out of DAL. I'm not sure having a few of those flights going to markets where there is an extremely low presence for bot AS and VX makes the best use of those limitations from DAL.

sfozrhfco

Unless you see AA/US planning to unnmerge and DL/US/AA are going to retrade their LGA/DCA slots, this will not happen again. That was a once in a very long while transaction.

Fanjet

It had nothing to do with airline mergers or how many slots an airline had at DCA. Airlines which held slots at DCA (for within-the-perimeter flights) were able to convert one of those slot pairs for a beyond-the-perimeter slot pair. Moreover, they were not city-specific. Which is why have seen three of them changed so far. Why would this not be able to happen again in the future?

beckoa

AS applied for this city pair before...

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/18185618-post32.html

And was reportedly bookable for a few hours too

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/18536453-post61.html

dmodemd

Although I would like to see SEA-DAL, I don't see it happening.

DFW is obviously a major hub with their major partner. Anything they can add to feed DFW can pay off well. Almost every SEA-DFW flight I am on is a sold out 737-900, even during the "off-season". If they can add another flight to that market, it would be more valuable to DFW. I see most of the people on that flight going beyond DFW or on the way back beyond SEA and probably many codeshared from AA.

As was mentioned earlier, DAL is great for Dallas only terminators and only to Dallas or east of Dallas. Southwest does already have 1/day SEA-DAL so they would already be competing against that.

Fanjet

Why? AS flies from SEA to both IAD and DCA, as well as EWR and JFK. The second stations in those two pairs each having great connection feed on AA while the first ones each do not. Moreover, there is the opportunity for DAL O&D traffic to fly DAL-SEA-XXX (as well as DAL-PDX-XXX).

sfozrhfco

The original grants were advocated by McCain to get America West access to DCA. The 8 additional ones in 2012 came right after the US Airways/Delta slot swap happened to increase competition at DCA. Smaller carriers were given new slots in exchange for carriers like AA to use an existing slot for beyond perimeter service.

There are some beyond perimeter slots which can be moved from one city to the another as AA did in moving the SAN slot to LAX but that does not add a slot.

This set of circumstances is not likely to happen again. There are no small carriers on the West Coast with big Congressional backing to push for more slots, the mergers consolidated the number of carriers as a whole, and DL/AA are not likely to swap slots or give them up without a fight. Thus, the confluence of events which occurred in 2012 is unlikely to come up again any time soon.

eponymous_coward

This is pretty much how I understand this.

Also, if LGA-DAL is a bust for VX/AS, and LGA is one of the larger markets from DAL... that's a good case for shutting down DAL entirely, not just for dumping LGA slots. I mean, if you're bleeding red ink on a top 10 market, you'd have to think that pretty much means you're not getting any traction against WN out of DAL a couple years in.

(I see plenty of LAX/SFO/LAS-DAL $79 o/w flights on VX within 30 days too, so it's not just LGA that isn't going gangbusters, if we're using that as our standard.)

And yet AS seems quite happy to keep DAL in the system, instead of just shutting it down and sending everyone back to DFW and dumping the LGA/DCA slots however they can.

Fanjet

VX's use of DAL is why they haven't made much traction against WN at DAL. They don't offer much choice for the passengers. DCA and LGA are both end stations with no possible connections. And there isn't that much on the LAX and SFO ends either. Moreover, VX has the smallest market share at LGA. Less than even WestJet, Frontier, and Spirit. And much less than Southwest's. AS's market strength is in the west coast. Even VX's market presence on the east coast is weak. So by shifting the focus of their flights from DAL to where their market strength is, that is how they can better compete with WN at DAL.