The Regional Airline Association (RAA), whose member airlines operate 50 percent of the nation’s scheduled flights, fly 40 percent of the commercial passenger fleet and carry more than one of every five domestic passengers, predicts the DOT’s auction will make flying to New York even more difficult and expensive, especially for travelers from the 450 U.S. communities who rely exclusively on regional airlines. Related Story
Each airline at Newark would keep up to 20 daily slots, according to the FAA proposal that targets the first auction for late this year or early next. However, 10 percent of the remainder, or about 96 out of 1,219, would be auctioned over the next decade. The Kennedy auction proposal is the same as Newark but increases the number to be auctioned to 20 percent of the remainder over five years after each airline kept up to 20 daily slots. Incumbent airlines would not be allowed to bid, although they would at Newark.
“Airline service to 70 percent of the nation’s airports that relies exclusively on regional aircraft is already under siege from stratospheric fuel costs, recession and an outdated air traffic control system,” said RAA President Roger Cohen. “Now DOT has decided to ‘pile on’ by unlawfully confiscating slots held by carriers and pushing an untested auction scheme at all three New York airports. Auctions will add a whole new layer of complexity, perhaps worsening delays, in what has always been nation’s most challenging airspace. Passengers from dozens of small and mid-size communities in New England, upstate New York and across the East Coast could be totally shut out from LGA, EWR and JFK.” He also echoed comments by regional executives indicating that even major league cities like St. Louis, Nashville, Columbus, Indianapolis, and Raleigh-Durham are at risk since they rely exclusively on regional aircraft exclusively to access New York airports.
The Business Travel Coalition (BTC) concurred with RAA that auctions would reduce New York area access from mid-size communities. It called DOT’s slot auction proposal “imprudent” because it would do nothing to reduce delays and congestion but would only increase New York air fares. BTC also said the proposal could also dampen airport investments by airlines faced with the uncertainty of adequate slots and curtail access to the important New York marketplace for mid-size communities. One unintended consequence, said the organization, would be for major carriers to divert slots from these communities into larger, more lucrative markets. “Pure and simple, this would represent government distortion of the marketplace of the worst kind where the losers would be mid-size cities,” said BTC Chair Kevin Mitchell, in joining Former AMR Chair Robert Crandall in calling for a National Air Transportation Policy. Related Story Ironically, however, Crandall, in a recent New York Times Op-Ed indicated that limitations on scheduling at congested airports were warranted in order to improve the deteriorated airline service to passengers. Related Story
According to BTC, there are no airport slot-auction data from anywhere in the world that would support the efficacy-claims advanced by auction proponents, save for game-theory exercise results at universities. “If DOT is so enamored of slot auctions, then it should conduct a multi-year experiment to generate quantitative data at a single airport somewhere outside the busiest airspace on the globe,” said Mitchell. “Otherwise, Congress should step in and block DOT's foolhardy adventure. For this administration to brand itself as a champion of free markets and then propose this interventionist scheme is the height of hypocrisy. This misguided policy proposal is Exhibit A in the case for the need to develop a coherent national air transportation policy, and within the framework of national transportation and energy policies.”