DOT's slot auction plan for New York airports comes under fire
Travel Weekly, 5/19/2008
Continental said the DOT proposal to auction off 10% of the slots at Newark over the next five years (approximately 95 slots) is “an unlawful taking of property that Continental will vigorously oppose.”
The DOT announced plans to move forward with slot auctions at Newark and Kennedy airports on Friday [May 16], reasoning that if it was going to cap flights at New York-area airports, then it should have slot auctions to spur competition. The DOT last month said it would implement a slot auction program at LaGuardia.
Continental said auctioning slots “will do nothing to ease congestion, but will raise the cost of air travel to consumers and act as an effective increase in taxes on an industry already known to bear an unreasonably high tax rate. Additionally, the proposal will result in reduced service to various communities and will create unnecessary market uncertainty at a time when the skyrocketing cost of oil and jet fuel has already created an extremely challenging environment for the industry.”
The Air Transport Association, a trade group representing U.S. airlines, also came out against slot auctions at New York-area airports.
"Our members and their passengers are frustrated by the DOT's continued fixation on auctions, despite the overwhelming rejection by passengers, airlines and airports to such an experiment. These ill-conceived and unlawful proposals are driven by ideology and will not reduce congestion or flight delays," said ATA President and CEO James May.
"Instead of focusing on modernizing and expanding the airspace infrastructure as the traveling and shipping public expects, the government seeks to curb that demand by making it more costly to fly. We must work to expand, not limit, capacity. This experiment will penalize the public."