Final objections filed on DCA slot allocation

Frontier Airlines, Spirit Airlines, and JetBlue lodged objections with the US Department of Transportation over the assignment of new long-distance slots at DCA. The three carriers were the losers in the recent allocation proceedings.

Frontier continues to press its position that it is qualified as a “limited incumbent carrier” and that Alaska Airlines should not be seen as such. For the former argument the carrier notes that the DOT described it as a limited incumbent carrier at DCA in both 2002 and 2012 in similar proceedings related to slot allocations. Such a change could be considered reasonable under the recently overturned Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc.; with the “Chevron deference” dead Frontier reemphasizes its position that changing 20 years’ of precedent with no notice is particularly egregious.

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Spirit Airlines is joined by San Jose International Airport (where it proposed to fly) in its objection. The claim leans heavily on interpretations of the definition of incumbent carriers, similar to Frontier’s. Spirit, however, claims only it is eligible, to the exclusion of Frontier.

JetBlue’s objection skips over the nuance of regulatory language to amplify its initial appeal for the DOT to support competition:

Despite broad proclamations and promises to make airline competition policy a top priority, DOT’s actual track record has inflicted on the travelling public the opposite of what it claims to be doing: it continues to make already dominant carriers even stronger, while preventing smaller carriers from growing and thus comparatively weakening them. This is government favoritism for high-fare legacy carriers. There is nothing pro-competition about Order 2024-10-11. The Department’s show cause order, left standing, will further erode competition.

JetBlue also objects to the DOT’s determination that its existing SJU service is already more expensive than the average DCA fare. While admitting the fares are higher, JetBlue argues that the flights are significantly longer, justifying the higher price. Flights are, of course, not priced by distance traveled. That is a weak argument and one that, if applied more broadly, would almost certainly be bad news for JetBlue and the industry in general.

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Not surprisingly, the five winning airlines all filed similar briefs supporting the original findings and asking for them to be made final. Expect that they will reply again in the next week, after which the DOT will issue its final order.

The full collection of docket filings is available here.