US major carriers Delta Air Lines and US Airways have concluded a key slot swap at New York LaGuardia and Washington National airports that US Airways claims will improve its profitability by $75 million annually.
US Airways has agreed to transfer 125 pairs of its Express slots at LaGuardia to Delta, while the Atlanta-hubbed carrier plans to transfer 42 pairs of its slots at Washington National to US Airways. A pair of slots equals one roundtrip flight.
US Airways claims the move significantly enlarges its presence at Washington National as its passenger enplanements are expected to grow by 30%-35% once it incorporates the new slots into its schedule.
In an employee update US Airways management offers a peak-day operations summary to illustrate the effects of the slot additions. Using June 2009 as a baseline, the carrier expects daily round-trips to rise from 187 to 229, and the number of nonstop destinations is offers from Washington National to grow from 46 to 61.
"We also plan to increase the number of seats we fly at DCA [Washington National] by using larger dual-class jets," says carrier SVP of marketing and planning Andrew Nocella. "This will increase capacity in a dense market, where demand continues to be brisk, without the negative effects of additional congestion."
US Airways plans to introduce new service from Washington National to eight new destinations that currently have no nonstop service: Birmingham, Alabama; Islip and Ithaca, New York; Little Rock, Arkansas; Myrtle Beach, South Carolina; Pensacola, Florida; Savannah, Georgia and Tallahassee, Florida.
Additionally, US Airways plans "to cover all of the DCA destinations that Delta decides to discontinue as a result of this transaction", says carrier President Scott Kirby.
US Airways plans to launch new service to seven new destinations from Washington National currently served by other carriers: Cincinnati, Ohio; Des Moines, Iowa; Grand Rapids, Michigan; Madison, Wisconsin, Montreal and Ottawa and Miami, Florida.
The decision by US Airways to trade its Express slots at LaGuardia results in a significant downsizing of its small plane service at the airport once 26 destinations are eliminated. As a result, 300 positions are being cut at US Airways' wholly-owned subsidiary Piedmont Airlines.
"While some of our markets out of LGA [LaGuardia] perform very well, others do not," the carrier explains. "In today's economic environment, rather than wait for external conditions to change, we must take aggressive action and plot our own future by utilizing our assets to the maximum."
Delta and US Airways also plan a gate swap at LaGuardia to consolidate all of Delta's operations at the airport into the main terminal facility, resulting in Delta operating from 11 additional gates.
US Airways, meanwhile, will split its operations at LaGuardia, moving Shuttle flights to the Marine Air Terminal while flights to Charlotte, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Wilmington, NC will originate from airport's east terminal.
Delta estimates doubling the number of destinations it serves from LaGuardia through the slot swap, by adding or sustaining flights to 30 small and medium-sized communities. Plans are underway to add a dozen cities not currently served by US Airways.
"In every slot where US Airways operates small turboprops today, Delta will operate larger jets," says Delta.
The swap is subject to government approvals. Once the formalities are accomplished Delta plans a $40 million construction project at LaGuardia to connect the Delta and US Airways main terminals and rebrand US Airways' existing main gates and ticket counters its standards.
Source: Air Transport Intelligence news
