The following information was released by the Airports Council International - North America:

Airports Council International North America (ACI-NA) has submitted comments in response to the Department of Transportations (DOT) Notice on its grant of the joint petition of Delta Air Lines and US Airways slot swap at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA) and New York LaGuardia Airport (LGA).

ACI-NAs comments stressed that the DOT should not grant the waiver petition set forth in its Notice as it fails to recognize the primary role of local airport proprietors in managing congestion at their airports and seeks unlawfully to impose restrictions on the proprietary rights of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority to control how their facilities at LGA and DCA are used.

ACI-NA has advocated that slots should be treated as community assets that are used to benefit the airport/community of their location, and not the airlines, said Principato. As such, the interests of the operating airport proprietor should be considered in evaluating the treatment of a petition by air carriers for the exchange of slots.

Principato also noted that airport proprietors have been given adequate market alternatives to resolve capacity constraints under the DOTs Amended Rates and Charges Policy.

It is especially important that such market alternatives not be distorted by a system that allows those most responsible for creating congestion problems to achieve even greater economic benefits by being given property rights in new slots that are created at the very airports which their flights caused to become congested, emphasized Principato.

The airport proprietors are in the best position to manage the use of the facilities they planned, designed, funded, built and currently operate, he concluded.