Alaska Airlines, Inc.

OST-2008-0206 - Form 41; T-100 Confidential Treatment

June 20, 2008

Motion for Confidential Treatment

Alaska Airlines, Inc. hereby requests confidential treatment of all information contained in its Form 41 Schedules, including all of its T-100 Schedules, for the month ended May, 2008. Alaska requests that this data be withheld from public disclosure indefinitely or until the Department rules on Virgin America Inc.’s pending motion for confidential treatment, whichever period is shorter. Alaska also seeks prospective confidential treatment for future monthly and quarterly Form 41 Schedules for the same duration of time. And, to be perfectly clear, Alaska will withdraw this motion if and when the Department issues a final decision denying Virgin’s request.

Alaska also wants to state at the outset that it had been hoping that the Department would promptly and definitively rule on Virgin’s pending confidentiality motion filed on March 14. Alaska joined with a number of other carriers both to oppose that motion as well as to urge that the Department expeditiously issue its final decision. However, with Virgin’s decision to enter a number of West Coast markets in which Alaska is also operating, and with the passage of more than three months since Virgin filed its motion, Alaska is now constrained to file this motion. Approval of Alaska’s motion is essential to prevent continuing and substantial competitive harm to its business. Alaska competes directly with Virgin in a number of domestic markets yet, by virtue of its pending motion, Virgin enjoys a significant unfair competitive advantage over Alaska. While Virgin continues to have access to Alaska’s most sensitive commercial data for purposes of formulating their pricing and entry decisions, Alaska is totally precluded from similar access to Virgin’s data due solely to Virgin’s unjustified pending motion which, until denied by the Department, prevents access by Virgin’s competitors. Until the Department rules definitively on and denies Virgin’s motion, Alaska should not be required to make its Schedules available publicly.

Counsel: Squire Sanders, Marshall Sinick, 202-626-6651

July 1, 2008

Answer of Virgin America

On June 26, 2008, BTS denied Virgin America’s confidentiality request. Docket OST-2008-0107. Virgin America will shortly be submitting an appeal from this decision under 14 C.F.R. §385.30, but for the record, respectfully submits this answer to Alaska’s motion by confirming that Virgin America does not object to the withholding of Alaska’s Form 41 data to the extent that the Department confirms disclosure likely would cause substantial harm to the competitive position of Alaska.

When assessing a carrier’s request for confidential treatment of certain traffic and financial data, the Department should properly focus its analysis on the likelihood of substantial competitive harm to the requester, and should not be persuaded by other opponents’ threats to withhold their own data, much less opponents’ arguments on how useful the data is to them.

Counsel: Pillsbury Winthrop, Kenneth Quinn, 202-663-8000

OST-2008-0107 - DOT Denial of Virgin America's Form 41 Financial and T-100 Motion for Confidential Treatment