The DOT has made a preliminary decision on which airlines will get the five new, highly sought-after daily slot pairs for service beyond the 1,250-mile perimeter established at Washington Reagan National Airport.
Per an order put out by the DOT on Wednesday, the pairs have been tentatively awarded to Alaska Airlines, for service to San Diego; American Airlines, to San Antonio, Texas; Delta Air Lines, to Seattle; Southwest, to Las Vegas; and United, to San Francisco.
JetBlue, Spirit and Frontier also applied for the slot pairs but lost out.
Those five daily routes are being awarded as part of this year's FAA reauthorization legislation, which became law in May. They'll join the 20 daily roundtrips that are already exempted from the Reagan National perimeter. Per federal statute, all other flights operating out of the airport must fly to destinations within 1,250 miles, a designation that includes major airports like Minneapolis, Dallas and Houston but excludes flights beyond parts of the Dakotas, Nebraska, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texas.
Airlines and other interested parties can submit objections within the next two weeks. But once the decision is final, airlines will have 90 days to inaugurate the routes.
Alaska would be the lone operator flying from the airport to San Diego, and American is to be the lone operator flying to San Antonio. Delta would compete with Alaska on Reagan National-Seattle, Southwest is to go against American on the Las Vegas route. And United would operate its second daily flight between Reagan National and San Francisco while also butting heads with Alaska.
Why not JetBlue, Spirit or Frontier?
JetBlue, Frontier and Spirit had each sought approval to operate flights to San Juan. In the tentative order, the DOT determined that Spirit and Frontier were ineligible to receive one of the slot pairs. Per the statute that governs the Reagan National perimeter rules, only airlines that already operate flights within the 1,250-mile perimeter can qualify as an incumbent operator at the airport, and only incumbent operators are eligible to be allocated one of the flights beyond the perimeter.
Spirit does not currently fly to Reagan National (in its application, it argued that it holds slots but leases them). Frontier serves the airport three times daily from Denver but has no flights within the perimeter.
The DOT ruled JetBlue's application the weakest because the airline is already the lone carrier serving San Juan from Washington Reagan. Granting JetBlue a second allocation for that route would serve to enhance its dominance in that market, the DOT concluded, rather than creating new competition.