U.S. Department 

of Transportation 

Office of the Secretary 

of Transportation 

Mr. Jeffrey Peterson 

Assistant Secretary 

April 19, 2012 

President, Alaska Airlines Master Executive Council 

Association of Flight Attendants - CW A 

19019 International Blvd. # 192 

SeaTac, W A 98188 

Dear Mr. Peterson: 

OLt 

1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE 

Washington, DC 20590 

Thank you for your letter to Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood, supporting the application 

of Alaska Airlines, Inc. for four beyond-perimeter slot exemptions at Ronald Reagan 

Washington National Airport (DCA). Alaska's application proposes to serve Portland 

International Airport, Oregon, and San Diego, California, each with one round trip per day from 

DCA. Secretary LaHood asked me to respond to your letter. 

Under authority granted in the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012 (FAA 20 12), the 

Department of Transportation will be awarding a total of eight slot exemptions at DCA to new 

entrant or limited incumbent carriers, which would support four daily round-trips. 

We received Alaska's application on March 12, 2012. Other timely applications were received 

from Air Canada, proposing one round trip to Vancouver, British Columbia; Frontier Airlines, 

one round trip to Colorado Springs and beyond to San Diego; JetBlue Airlines, one round trip to 

San Juan, Puerto Rico, and one round trip to Austin, Texas; Southwest Airlines, one round trip to 

Austin and San Diego beyond; Sun Country Airlines, one round trip to Las Vegas; and Virgin 

America, Inc., two round trips to San Francisco. 

As the matter is still pending, I cannot comment on the merits of the points raised in your letter. 

However, I can assure you that all applications the Department received will be given full and 

fair consideration and will be evaluated against the selection criteria specified in the statute. 

The Department's action on this matter is being administered through a public docket, which 

allows all interested parties the opportunity to comment. Following our normal practice, I am 

placing a copy of your letter and this response in docket number DOT-2012-0029. 

I appreciate your interest in this matter. 

Sincerely yours, 

Assistant Secretary for 

Aviation and International Affairs 
From: 

To: 

Cc: 

Subject: 

Date: 

Attachments: 

as79661@gmail.com on behalf of Jeffrey Peterson 

LaHood. Ray COST> 

\leda Shook; Kathj Bruni; B@d Tilden; Shane Jackett; Andy Schnejder; Megan Lawrence; Elizabeth Ryan 

Re: Letter In support of Alaska"s application for POX-DCA and SAN-DCA service, Docket No. DOT-OST-2012-

0029 

Monday, March 12, 2012 5:03:23 PM 

AFA Alaska MEC support of Alaska Airlines application for PPX-PCA and SAN-PCA siQts.pdf 

Attachment included. 

On Mon, Mar 12, 2012 at 2:02PM, Jeffrey Peterson <jpeterson@alaskamec.org> 

wrote: 

Dear Secretary LaHood: 

On behalf of the nearly 2,900 flight attendants at Alaska Airlines as represented by 

the Association of Flight Attendants, I am writing to pledge our support for Alaska 

Airlines' application to provide one daily round-trip flight between Washington 

Reagan National Airport (DCA) and Portland International Airport (POX) and one 

daily round-trip flight between DCA and San Diego International Airport (SAN). 

Please refer to the attached letter. 

We respectfully urge you to grant Alaska Airlines' application to provide POX-DCA 

and SAN-DCA service. Thank you for your consideration. 

Sincerely, 

Jeffrey Peterson 

President, Master Executive Council 

Association of Flight Attendants-CWA at Alaska Airlines 

(206) 243-8411 Office 

(206> 246-4752 Fax 

jpeterson@alaskamec. org