Corporate Airlines, Inc. / Ozark Airlines, Inc. d/b/a Great Plains Airlines / American Trans Air, Inc. / Midwest Express Airlines, Inc. / Airtran Airways, Inc. / US Airways, Inc.

Issued July 2, 2003 | Served July 8, 2003

Order 03-7-5
OST-00-7182 - Special Rules for Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (Within-Perimeter Slot Exemptions)

Final Order

As we indicated in the show-cause order, our primary focus and concern is for the expedited inauguration of DCA service for the affected Florida and North Carolina communities. For this reason we have decided to accept US Airways' offer to temporarily serve all of the AIR-21 slot exemptions awarded by Order 2003-1-16. Only US Airways has demonstrated the commitment needed to implement the service promised to these communities on an immediate and timely basis. While Air Tran, in its filings, questioned the motives of US Airways in seeking this temporary authority, it did not respond to the need to introduce service at those very communities where service has been delayed due to Air Tran's reluctance to begin using the authority that it had been awarded last January. AirTran did not to respond to the US Airways offer to serve the DCA-Florida markets other than to oppose it on general competitive grounds. Instead of making its own date-certain counter offer to inaugurate its promised services, Air Tran was silent on that issue.

We will provide AirTran the same opportunity to inaugurate DCA service that Order 2003-6-14 provided to Corporate. Namely, all that AirTran has to do is announce, 30 days in advance, its intention to inaugurate its proposed service by October 25, 2003, and it can retrieve the slot exemptions.

We also finalize our tentative decision that, if either Corporate or AirTran fails to commence its respective DCA operations authorized by Order 2003-1-16 in compliance with the use-or-lose requirements, a proceeding to reallocate the resulting unused slot exemptions would be immediately instituted. In this regard, we agree with Delta and Spirit that such a proceeding should, and will, be open to all interested parties, not just the original applicants for the authority granted pursuant to Order 2003-1-16.

By: Michael Reynolds