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OST-2003-15968 - ATA Airlines - Reassignment of DCA Slots
http://www.ata.com/
OST-2007-0032 - AirTran Application to Change DCA Slot Times
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ATA Airlines, Inc. OST-2003-15968 - Exemption - Reassignment of Reagan Washington National Slots August 15, 2003 Hereby requests an exemption from 14 C.F.R. 93, and any other regulation to the extent required, permitting the reassignment of two Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport slots currently held by ATA to different slot hours. Specifically, ATA requests authority to reassign one of each of its two 2100 DCA slots, which were awarded to ATA at the Federal Aviation Administration's August 12, 2003, slot lottery in Washington, D.C., to the 1300 and 1400 slot hours. Counsel: ATA and Squire Sanders, Marshall Sinick, 202-626-6651, msinick@ssd.com
OST-2003-15968 - ATA Airlines September 2, 2003 Consolidated Answer of American Airlines The Department should not abuse 49 USC 41714(d), which requires a finding of "exceptional" circumstances, by granting the applications at issue here. There is nothing "exceptional" about any of these requests, other than their brazen attempt to create some 13 new peak-hour operations at DCA. If the Department were to abolish all hourly slot limitations at DCA, American would not object. But unless every carrier has the same opportunity to move the slots in their DCA portfolios to any hour of the day, then no carrier should. Counsel: American, Carl Nelson, 202-496-5647, carl.nelson@aa.com
September 4, 2003 American's argument against ATA's application in particular ignores the Department of Transportation's decisional standard articulated six years ago-that the exceptional circumstances requirement set forth in 49 U.S.C. 41714 is met by applicants proposing low-fare competitive service. While the legacy carriers often prefer to avoid mention of this subject, ATA's application-which will allow ATA to operate a fourth roundtrip DCA-Chicago Midway flight in contrast to the 48 flights operated by American and United-clearly meets this requirement and should be granted without delay. Counsel: Squire Sanders, Marshall Sinick, 202-626-6651, msinick@ssd.com
Order 2003-9-30 Issued and Served September 30, 2003 The Department grants the separate requests of ATA Airlines, Inc., Spirit Airlines, Inc., Colgan Air, Inc., and Chautauqua Airlines, Inc. to move the operation of slots at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport from the 2100 hour (9:00 p.m.) to various alternative times. Insofar as their claim to "exceptional circumstances," all of the applicants share certain characteristics. All were given priority standing and subsequently awarded DCA slots in the recent FAA slot lottery due to the FAA's determination that each was a new entrant by the FAA's regulatory definitions. As such, even with the award of the 2 100 hour slots, Spirit, Colgan, and Chautauqua have argued they have little or no flexibility to adjust schedules to effectively market services since the 2100 hour slots alone do not permit the establishment of a viable pattern of service. We agree that 2 100 hour slots have little or no utility to a carrier that has no other slots. While other alternatives may exist that could enable these carriers to offer viable service, none are as practical or sure as the approach they have pursued here--that of seeking authority under section 41714(d) to move 2100 hour slots to other available times. Moreover, if a grant of that authority is denied here, carriers may face the choice of either operating their service at a loss or relinquishing the slots to FAA, at least temporarily frustrating the purpose for which the FAA's slot lottery was instituted. Precisely because the flexibility of these limited slot holders is so constrained, their circumstances are exceptional. By: Michael Reynolds
OST-2000-7182 - DCA Within-Perimeter Slot Exemptions October 30, 2007 Please accept this letter as notification that ATA Airlines, Inc. shall release the slots referenced below back to the FAA effective November 28, 2007. This action was necessitated by the financial challenge of maintaining the flights associated with these slots.
Counsel: ATA, Brian Hunt, 317-282-7006
February 20, 2008 In its October 26 Application, AirTran stated that use of the two slots in the 1300 and 1400 slot times would allow AirTran to offer a greater variety of flights between DCA and Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. The exemption would allow AirTran to fly six daily roundtrip flights between Washington, D.C. and Atlanta spread out throughout the day. Changing the flight times would allow AirTran to meet the travel demands of business and leisure travelers for afternoon flights and to compete against the dominant ATL carrier, Delta Airlines, which has sixteen daily DCA-ATL roundtrips including several during the afternoon hours. (U.S. Airways also operates three daily DCA-ATL roundtrips.) In addition to providing low fare options in the heavily traveled DCA-ATL market, a new AirTran afternoon flight (made possible with the 1300 and 1400 ATA slots) would provide DCA passengers with improved connecting opportunities to AirTran's expanding network through its Atlanta hub. The Department has required that applicants for slot reassignment demonstrate that they hold only a limited number of slots at DCA: "our authority to grant exemptions for slot slides at Reagan National is applicable only in limited circumstances to meet the specific needs of carriers holding a limited number of slots at that airport. With these two ATA slots, AirTran will hold and operate an extremely limited number of DCA slots (only 12 between the hours of 0700 and 2159), well within the number of slots the Department has previously determined to constitute a limited number, and satisfies the requirement that an applicant for reassignment hold only a limited number of DCA slots. Counsel: Wiley Rein, Edward Faberman, 202-719-7402, efaberman@wileyrein.com
Order 2008-3-25 Issued March 25, 2008 | Served March 28, 2008 Order Granting AirTran Airways' Request to Reassign the Operating Times of Two Slots at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport | Word By this order, the Department is granting the request of AirTran Airways, Inc. to reassign the operation of its two 2100 hour slots at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, one each to the 1300-1359 and 1400-1459 periods. The terms of this order require AirTran to utilize the re-timed slots to provide an additional daily nonstop round trip to Atlanta, Georgia, with 137-seat Boeing 737-700 aircraft. The Department has granted slot slide requests to a new entrant or limited incumbent carrier that demonstrated a lack of flexibility in otherwise addressing a service requirement, and further demonstrated such circumstances as the importance of a slot slide to maintain an overall connecting operation (Order 1994-9-49); to strengthen an airport as a competitive alternative hub (Orders 1999-11-4 and 2000-10-32); to meet increasing demand in a market (Order 2000-7-20), or to inaugurate service to a new market (Order 2000-2-33); and where a limited number of slots received via lottery had little utility and if restricted to their times would have frustrated the purpose of the lottery (Order 2003-9-30). Here, as in other typical precedent cases, AirTran’s DCA slot portfolio greatly limits its ability to adjust and expand its service offerings, but its relatively small slot holdings are not exceptional per se; rather, they are a typical circumstance held by recent entrants to the airport. Here, however, as AirTran has presented in its February 20 supplement, grant of these exemptions will enable the carrier to enhance its service in both the local DCA-ATL market and in thirty-three connecting markets that AirTran serves beyond Atlanta, and provide low-fare service options to such large connecting markets as Dallas and Los Angeles. These afternoon flights would, as AirTran asserts, “significantly increase a wide array of connecting opportunities,” maintaining a “benefit for travelers and dozens of communities” that “would be lost if AirTran is unable to keep the ATA slots in the same hours as operated by ATA.” These factors are sufficient to meet the statutory requirement of exceptionality, as defined by Congress. By: Michael Reynolds |
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