how often does congress allocate additional slots outside the 1,250 mile limit? i live in old town, and don't see how the noise is any different from the 757, a320, a319 that take off there.

also, if F9 were to liquidate, what would happen to their six slots?

whenever a new and important senator appears on the scene(mccain wanted to fly to phoenix). to avoid the embarrassment of the new person just taking one slot, a group of 4 or 6 are created and go to both parties. Reid/McCain, and Oregon/Washington were 4 of the last 6 as I recall. i don't remember where the other two went.

in the past, slots from dead airlines are reallocated. the decision making of reallocation seems to be very political to me.

i'm hoping for one day DCA-SFO

I think SLC on DL and LAX on AS were the other two.

i am amazed that with both feinstein and boxer from SF area that they do not have plane service. maybe the planes are a guy thing.

same here...i find it odd that there are 2x to SEA, but nothing to SFO. i kind of wish they'd grant UA the right to change 1x DEN to 1x SFO. i don't see the value of the DEN flight.

DEN is a cxn for UAX flights north to canada - likely one reason why its in the mix - the other is some political clout on someone's part

but you can hit up the canada flights from ORD. i would think you'd want an AM flight to SFO to connect to the asia flights, since it's easier to get there from downtown dc then IAD.

I'm booked on the DEN flight, big convenience to get to my office in Arlington!

As a local, I think that they should block all flights beyond the 1250 limit. I find it frustrating that local governments have always voted against this, and then congress goes ahead and forces long distance flights down our throats. Republicans congressmen and Senators are all about States' Rights until it affects them. Then, their hypocracy comes out.

very few of the 10 largest metro areas in the united states require or have a "convenience" airport. don't recall many in the european metro areas either.

need dca for special people. i do use it often myself, but would gladly see it converted back to swamp.

As a local, I appreciate the fact that some of the restrictions are relaxed for my convenience.

the local govts also represent all those under the flight paths as the flight density has increased.

stage 3 reduced the noise
$4/gal fuel really reduced the noise.

still, probably at least 20% of the wealth live under the flight paths, and they do complain a lot.

i do realize that the noise may not be in some back yards, but this is not the flight path i bought. i bought electras and other turbo props that turned north or south at the end of the runway. now i got med heavies roaring down the potomac, or close.

$150,000 a year pilots cannot find the middle of the potomac. they drive up and down the east side, as the single marker beacon is on the east side. they cannot handle leaving it half a mile to one side, and drive up the middle of the river.

as i said living in alexandria i don't see a big difference in the noise. my parents live in manassas and that's much further away from IAD then i am from DCA, and the noise is about to same for me. besides, what's the difference in a a320 going to LGA then a a319 going to SFO.

DCA is very, very convenient. probably one of the most convenient airports i fly out of, and i wish there were flights to SFO. no way turning it back into a swamp.

One of the original stipulations of the legislation was to give carriers access to DCA who did not have hubs inside the perimeter. Which is why in the original allocation Frontier and the old America West won most of the slots (5/6 IIRC) with TWA winning a single LAX daily. When TWA was taken over by AA the slot went back in the pool and was reallocated to Alaska (who did not apply in the first round) for DCA-SEA just prior to 9/11. So the original 6 slots ended up in the hands of carriers who basically had no presence inside the 1250 perimeter (HP had a small hub in CMH that has been closed down). In the next round of allocations AS won 2 more (SEA & LAX), HP won 1 (PHX), F9 won 1 (DEN), DL won 1 (SLC) and UA won 1 (DEN). The justification for DL and UA was to connect smaller communities in the Rockies to DCA with a single stop. To my knowledge the only carrier that has ever applied for DCA-SFO was US who was promptly shot down for being the majority slot holder at DCA. When HP took over US their slots did not go back up for reallocation, which IMHO was a mistake on the DOT's part. Now the combined carrier has the most slots at DCA and the most beyond-perimeter slots.

(That is all from memory so pieces may be wrong, please correct me if it is).

ETA: Lots is wrong so see post below.