JetBlue to bid on flight slots in N.Y., D.C.

October 27, 2011|By Mary Schlangenstein, Bloomberg News

Currently, JetBlue operates as many as 11 daily flights from LaGuardia… (Associated Press )

DALLAS - JetBlue Airways Corp. will bid for takeoff and landing slots being auctioned at New York’s LaGuardia Airport and Washington’s Reagan National Airport.

The Federal Aviation Administration is preparing to auction 16 pairs of slots at LaGuardia and eight at Reagan under a plan by Delta Air Lines Inc. and US Airways Group to swap assets at the airports. JetBlue wants to expand at both facilities.

“We have a plan to aggressively bid and win those slots,’’ chief executive Dave Barger said yesterday. “We’re interested in both airports.’’

JetBlue is based in New York and has the most daily domestic departures from the city’s John F. Kennedy International Airport. It operates as many as 11 daily flights from LaGuardia and nine from Reagan.

The airline likely would face competition for the slots from Southwest Airlines Co., the largest discount carrier, which has said it’s studying whether to bid for them.

“JetBlue is concerned about Southwest’s further incursions into what it views, in a geographical sense, as its turf,’’ said George Hamlin, president of Hamlin Transportation Consulting in Fairfax, Va. Even with additional slots, JetBlue would “end up with such a small market footprint that they’re not going to get much traction.’’

Barger declined to comment on how many slots it will seek at each airport. Because takeoffs and landings are limited at both airports, airlines must buy or trade slots in order to expand. In the pending auction, the slots are being sold in bundles instead of individually.

“With how the bidding is taking place and our balance sheet strength, we do not believe we’ll have an issue at all in terms of actively participating in the bidding process at both airports,’’ Barger said. The airline had $1.24 billion in cash and short-term investments at Sept. 30.