Ron Mathieu, executive director of the state’s largest airport, is urging U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood to let US Airways keep all its slots at Reagan National Airport as a way to ensure the daily direct flight between Little Rock and Washington, D.C., continues as scheduled.
Competitors such as JetBlue Airways Group Inc. are asking that US Airways be forced to give up slots at Reagan National if a planned merger with the bankrupt American Airlines, is approved.
US Airways Group already controls 55 percent of the traffic at the airport that serves the nation’s capital. Mathieu wrote that a merger would give the combined airline control of about two-thirds of all the slots in and out of Reagan National.
However, forcing US Airways to divest slots would likely come at the expense of Little Rock’s Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport/Adams Field and similar-size airports, according to Mathieu.
“Should US Airways be asked to transfer [Reagan National] slots to other carriers, I would be willing to guess that these slots would be then awarded to carriers that would seek to serve larger cities,” Mathieu wrote in the May 14 letter.
US Airways has flown daily flights between Clinton National and Reagan National since March 2012. The airline initially offered two flights a day, but on Feb. 1, reduced flights to one a day.
Mathieu included a copy of the letter in a packet sent to members of the Little Rock Municipal Airport Commission, which met Tuesday.
Mathieu wrote that US Airways has been an important piece of Clinton National’s growth, providing direct service to Charlotte, N.C., and to Washington.
Mathieu said the loss of the direct flight would “place [the Little Rock airport] at a distinct disadvantage” as well as “frustrate the thousands of area customers that rely on this access for work and pleasure.”
US Airways and American’s parent company, AMR Corp., announced the merger plan Feb. 14. The proposed merger is now being reviewed by the U.S. Justice Department and the Transportation Department. The Justice Department could order US Airways to give up some of its slots at Reagan National if it approves the merger.
Approved in March by a U.S. bankruptcy judge, the merger plan also is awaiting the judge’s review of American’s reorganization plan so it can emerge from bankruptcy. The judge is to hold a hearing Aug. 15 to consider that plan.
The $11 billion merger deal is expected to be finalized by Sept. 30. If approved, the merger will involve more than 110,000 employees, responsible for more than 1,500 planes flying to and from 336 destinations.
At a hearing in March before a subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee, US Airways Chief Executive Officer Doug Parker and American’s CEO, Tom Horton, said the merged airlines had no plans to divest slots at Reagan National and said Washington also is served by two other nearby airports, Dulles International and Baltimore/Washington International.
Parker testified that if the merged airlines gave up the slots, smaller communities would lose flights because it was likely whoever took over the slots would stop serving less-economical locations, USA Today reported.
A spokesman for US Airways declined to comment about the slot issue, citing the pending decision by the federal agencies.
JetBlue CEO Dave Barger has said that not forcing a merged US Airways/American operation to give up some flights in Washington would harm competition, Bloomberg News reported.
Barger said the flights should be auctioned off to other carriers and that JetBlue is interested in expanding its presence at Reagan National.
US Airways offers one direct flight a day between Little Rock and Washington, said Shane Carter, director of public affairs and governmental relations for Clinton National.
The airline initially offered two direct flights per day when it began the service in 2012, but reduced it to one based on lower-than-anticipated customer demand. Currently, US Airways provides 39 small and midsize airports with direct flights to Reagan National.
Carter, said the airport also is working with Arkansas’ congressional delegation and the Little Rock-area business community, to urge the merger be approved without the loss of slots at Reagan National.Carter did not know when the Justice Department might issue a decision on its antitrust review.
“That has been a very popular flight,” Carter said.
Mathieu’s letter noted that others, including the Little Rock Chamber of Commerce, have sent similar letters urging that the slots stay unchanged. Carter said the airport also is working with the state’s congressional delegation.
U.S. Rep Tim Griffin, RArk., is opposed to any effort to take Reagan National slots away from US Airways.
“It is critical to Arkansas’s economic development that we maintain a nonstop flight between Little Rock and our Nation’s Capital because that flight provides Arkansans a direct connection to key policymakers and the Mid-Atlantic region,” Griffin said in a statement.
Griffin and other members of Congress plan to send a letter to LaHood and Attorney General Eric Holder about the slot issue later this week.
“I am joining with my colleagues on a letter to Secretary LaHood and Attorney General Holder asking them to examine the possibility of a slot divestiture at Washington’s Reagan National Airport and the effect it could have on small- and medium-size airports around the country, such as Little Rock,” Griffin wrote.
Business, Pages 27 on 05/23/2013