US-AA merger DCA impacts: speculation?
 

As you've probably heard, DOJ has settled with US & AA to permit a merger, pending divestiture of assets at certain airports:

http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/im...1112200007.jpg

44 slot pairs (10% of DCA's market share) are up for grabs between at least two carriers. The usual stable of growing LCCs, like WN, B6, & NK, plus DL, have all expressed interest. Which airlines do you think have a compelling case?

US/AA have stated that the cuts will come from RJ destinations, which will result in a cut of almost 40% in RJ flying. DCA-RDU and DCA-BNA are certain to see frequencies cut, as those are the two routes both fly RJs to. What other destinations could see less, or more, service?

I think most destinations that are downgraded in frequency will be okay... I think BNA will probably be picked up by WN and will thus have 2 carriers on the route.. And the fares will be better for BNA with WN.

I think RDU is going to get screwed the most cause there will only be one carrier (nobody really sounds like they will offer RDU-DCA) and fares are already ridiculous on the flights (>$460)... So with no competition, I fear they may try to raise the price more...

As I am primarily a DL flyer for my domestic routes, I do have a selfish hope that DL gains some slots and picks up some more routes, but I doubt that's going to happen. Most likely, some LCCs will pick up the slots and US/AA will drop some low-performing barbiejet routes, which may make 35A a slightly less overwhelmed cesspool.

While US is almost completely intolerable, it is the dominant carrier, and is often my only choice for a NS routing to many smaller cities this side of the Mississippi. As I will soon no longer be able to credit the flights to UA, I will likely be taking a lot more connections through DTW and ATL.

I have already burned my AADvantage miles. When a good carrier mates with a bad one, you can bet your bippy the progeny is gonna' be ugly.

I dont see that many cuts to the RDU and BNA routes. Remember those cities are state capitals. Cutting those routes would become a political hot potato with congress.

As for carriers. The ones up for grabs would be WN, B6, NK. Part of the deal was for the routes to go to the non legacy airlines.

Where did you hear this? The press release from US/AA indicates the opposite.

"To ensure much of the service currently operated by the carriers to small- and medium-sized markets from DCA is maintained, the new American has agreed with the DOT to use all of its DCA commuter slot pairs for service to these communities."

From the WSJ article linked to in OP. This is echoed in the Horton/Parker letter to employees: "the reductions in DCA and LGA are expected to have little or no impact on mainline flying and will impact regional jet flying mostly done by contract partners and those regional jets will be deployed elsewhere in the new American’s network. These divestures will require the new American to discontinue nonstop service from DCA to some destinations currently served."

DCA slots are either "commuter" or "air carrier." 74 of the 298 slot pairs (290 in use + 8 leased to B6) owned by US/AA are "commuter" slots, for use by 50-seat RJs or 70-seat props. The settlement states that all of the divested slots will come from the "air carrier" pool (104 slots = 2[8 AA-B6 slots + 44]). BusinessWeek notes that the DOT agreement just means the "commuter" slots will be RJ flights to non-top-29 airports; hence, the commuter slots can't be used for RJs to ORD, JFK, PHL, DTW, MSP, etc. These airports must be served by "air carrier" (but don't get your hopes up: US/AA will fly RJs in many of their mainline slots).

The future slot pair composition will be:
246 total
172 "air carrier": mainline/RJ to any airport, including 6 beyond-perimeter
74 "commuter": RJs to small (min 56 slot pairs) or medium (max 18) airports

(Wikipedia has a list of US airports sortable by "role," e.g., large, medium, small, and non-hub. BNA & RDU are among the medium airports.)

tl;dr: There will be at least 56 flights/day to small airports, but that's a lot less than there are currently.

Both WN and DL (!) offer BWI-RDU non-stop for about $200 RT advance purchase. Not much fun to spend 1.5h getting to BWI, just to spend <1h in the air, but hey, it's cheap.

At the very least, I'd imagine that the AA frequencies to BNA & RDU would be cut, with remaining flights timed to meet US connections at DCA (and/or that RDU-LHR).

LGA slots will go to WN & VX:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-1...st-virgin.html

Among the questions: where will Virgin go? They won't have beyond-perimeter rights, and all of their east/central destinations are competitive.

What's the rationale for beyond-perimeter rights at LGA? Is it analogous to the history of DCA restrictions meant to prop up IAD?

The DCA was done to....
1. Push airline service to Dulles
2. Sound issues with larger jets in Alexandria and Arlington.

DCA was given slots for long flights because of congress and lobbyists.

The LGA was done .......

1. Volume of use at the airport
2. They couldn't expand

They allow longer flights on Saturday and to DEN. The latter was an already well established route when they implemented this in the early 80s.

The other airports were well established in the early 80s.

obsolete perimiter rule
 

Of course today, neither are an issue. It's just pure politics with congressmen protecting service to/from small east coast airports that frankly do not deserve it.

The list of cities losing DCA service effective in April 2014 is out:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...announced.html

Since NewAA pledged to maintain flights to small/mid-sized airports in the USA, foreign destinations like YUL & NAS and large airports like DTW & MSP had to go. (Perhaps not coincidentally, this gives DL a monopoly on the latter two non-stops.) Nine of the airports are small cities in coastal NC/SC/GA/FL.

Discontinuing these 17 cities accounts for 60 of the 104 slot pairs to be given up, with the remainder to come from cutting frequencies to remaining destinations.

Bids from other airlines for these slots have been received and are being evaluated by the feds.

I was surprised to see that AA will drop its DCA-SAN nonstop to add a third DCA-LAX nonstop. I thought that wasn't allowed with perimeter-rule exemptions; once you got one, you were committed to that route. Not so?

Some of the beyond-perimeter slots are not tied to a specific destination, and it appears that the SAN flight was one. Now that US has access to AA's feed/customers at LAX, that's a much more lucrative destination for them.

In other news, JetBlue says it has won 12 slot pairs:
http://atwonline.com/airports-amp-ro...ys-divestiture
Still to be announced: who won the other three bundles (of 14, 14, and 4). Southwest probably has one of the 14s, Virgin may have one, and the last?

Edit: Southwest says it won 27. (How is that a multiple of 14?)
http://online.wsj.com/article/PR-CO-...30-913925.html

It's confirmed that Virgin America has the last four; their strategy from perimeter-limited LGA & DCA remains a head-scratcher. Southwest won 28 but gave back one Sunday-only flight pair, hence the strange 27 figure. I'm not sure what use anyone else has for a Sunday-only flight.

Some vague hints were dropped this week that WN & B6 will add flights to their network cities, and add a few frequencies to cities already served from DCA:
http://www.flightglobal.com/news/art...s-from-396268/
Southwest says MDW would be "logical," and B6 says that they'll fly to someplace north of FLL -- which is just about everywhere, but does include focus city MCO.