By Joe Brancatelli
Remember last year’s big deal between Delta Air Lines and US Airwaysto swap take-off and landing slots, terminals and gate facilities at New York LaGuardia and Washington National airports? In essence, Delta would get control of most of US Airways’ assets at LaGuardia, and Delta would give US Airways most of its facilities at National.
The Federal Aviation Administration has now approved the deal, but with a caveat: Delta would have to sell to other carriers 14 of the 42 pairs of slots it was going to trade to US Airways, and US Airways would have to sell to other carriers 20 of the 140 slot pairs at LaGuardia that it was trading to Delta. Dismayed that the government might actually intervene to inject additional competition into the New York andWashington markets, Delta and US Airways say they won’t do the deal under those terms.
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Joe Brancatelli is editor and publisher of JoeSentMe.com, a non-commercial Web site for business travelers. Copyright 2009 by Joe Brancatelli. Licensed by contract for Orbitz use.
