America West wants D.C.-Vegas slot

Friday, Jan. 16, 2004 | 11:17 a.m.

America West Airlines is asking the U.S. Department of Transportation to allow additional service between Las Vegas and Washington D.C.'s Ronald Reagan National Airport, but the Tempe, Ariz.-based airline will have a long list of competitors, including a Las Vegas start-up carrier.

The Department of Transportation last month opened competition for 12 "slot exemptions" that would enable airlines to fly nonstop to the Washington airport from beyond 1,250 miles. The Department of Transportation initially established the 1,250-mile perimeter rule to stimulate growth at nearby Dulles International Airport when it was built, but now it is also used to limit the number of operations in the vicinity of the Capitol and the White House.

Reagan National is one of three major airports serving the Washington metropolitan area, but is the airport closest to the Capitol and many government offices.

A slot exemption is the equivalent of one airport operation, a takeoff or a landing, and airlines need two exemptions for each round trip to the airport.

America West was one of nine airlines that applied for the exemptions and the only one proposing additional service to Las Vegas.

Under the America West proposal, the airline, which carries about 500,000 passengers a month to and from McCarran International Airport, one round trip a day would be offered between Las Vegas and Washington and two round trips a day between Phoenix and Washington, for a total of six exemptions.

America West already offers one round trip a day between Reagan National and Las Vegas and two a day between the Washington airport and Phoenix.

The airline, which recently broke from its traditional hub-and-spoke business model to offer nonstop transcontinental flights linking Los Angeles and San Francisco with New York and Boston, offered an alternative proposal to flights from Phoenix and Las Vegas.

The alternative proposal would request exemptions for flights to Washington from Los Angeles and San Francisco.

"Although we believe Phoenix and Las Vegas awards more closely match the spirit of the beyond-perimeter exemptions, should the DOT elect to award service to Los Angeles or San Francisco, we believe America West is the only low-fare, full-service airline with the size and scope to change the historically high pricing currently in place in these markets," said Scott Kirby, executive vice president of marketing and sales for America West.

A Las Vegas-based start-up carrier, Primaris Airlines Inc., also requested exemptions, proposing two flights a day between Los Angeles and Washington.

Primaris, which isn't planning any scheduled service to Las Vegas, intends to fly aircraft with all first-class seating between business centers on both coasts and to Europe. The airline received its Department of Transportation certification in September and is in the final stages of Federal Aviation Administration certification.

In its Washington slot exemption application, Primaris said it would fly the route with twin-engine Boeing 757 jets with 126 seats.

Other airlines seeking the Washington exemptions: