Aloha route denied
Several airlines beat Aloha Airlines
and two other carriers for slots
to serve a Washington, D.C., airport
Aloha Airlines has lost its bid to fly to Washington, D.C.,'s Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.
The two daily nonstop flights from John Wayne Airport in Orange County, Calif., with connections to Hawaii, would have been the carrier's first East Coast-West Coast direct service.
Competition was stiff for the Reagan Airport slots.
A dozen carriers sought permission after Congress directed the Transportation Department in December to add flights from the airport. The agency was "flooded with applications," Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta said at a news conference.
"We knew all along that this was an extremely competitive process," said Aloha Airlines spokesman Stu Glauberman.
"Should the opportunity arise, we would apply again to serve Reagan International Airport. In the meantime, we're exploring several alternatives for deploying two new aircraft that will be delivered this summer," he said.
Those planes, Boeing 737-700s, are capable of coast-to-coast nonstop flights, but Aloha would not elaborate on the routes under consideration.
Nine airlines were awarded 22 takeoff or landing slots on Reagan airport's operation schedule, Mineta announced yesterday, adding eleven round-trip flights. The emphasis was on flights to cities more than 1,250 miles from Washington.
Los Angeles, Denver, Phoenix and Seattle now are destinations that can be reached from the airport without changing planes.
AirTran Airways can add one round trip flight to Atlanta. Comair, a Delta Air Lines subsidiary, may add either one flight to Jackson, Miss., or one to Lexington, Ky. Midwest Airlines gains a flight to Kansas City, while Spirit Airlines can now serve Detroit. Arlington, Va.-based U.S. Airways may add one round-trip to Asheville or Wilmington, N.C., or Chattanooga, Tenn.
Alaska Air, America West, Frontier and United also gained slots and are cleared to expand existing hubs.
In addition to Aloha Airgroup Inc., the department rejected applications from AMR Corp.'s American Airlines and Primaris Airlines Inc.
The service expansions were long sought by members of Congress, particularly from the middle south and western states. The terminal is three miles south of the White House and about a 20-minute taxicab ride from downtown.
Bloomberg News and the Associated Press contributed to this report.