American: Fares, Loads, Aircraft Refute FAA On LaGuardia

New York LaGuardia's average aircraft size, load factor and fares show the FAA's proposed rules for managing access there are unfounded, according to American Airlines' filing on the issue (32-page pdf) from a few days ago. The document includes brief tables on all three of those claims. The one I'm showing here plants LaGuardia's average aircraft size, measured by seats, in the middle of large and variously congested airports.

American views the FAA scheme as fundamentally incompatible with airline deregulation itself: "Delay reduction and congestion management  do not require the FAA to replace competition with central planning." This is a reference to acts that include imposing an average aircraft size--larger than what's in place today--and taking 10% of an airline's slots for redistribution every year. FAA wants larger aircraft to increase the number of passengers that can use the chronically congested airport, and the slot reallocation to give non-dominant carriers a chance to serve it. But smaller communities as a rule can't support large aircraft operations, and entrenched carriers regard the forced reallocation of slots as "confiscation."

That's the short version.

Here's the Air Transport Association's media brief on the issue, a good quick review as seen by its member carriers including American. Here's a (pdf) filing by the Air Carrier Association of America, which provides a glimpse into the battle by small airlines that fly larger aircraft, though the meat of that filing concerns the earlier request for an extension on the comment deadline.   (docket number 25709)