BEFORE THE DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION

WASHINGTON, D.C.

__________________________________________ ) Motion s and Application of ) ) AMERICAN AIRLINES , INC. ) HAWAIIAN AIRLINES, INC. ) Docket DOT

- OST

- 2010

- 0018 ) i n the matter of 2010 U.S.

- Haneda ) Combination Services Allocation Proceeding ) __________________________________________)
CONSOLIDATED ANSWER OF THE DELTA MASTER EXECUTIVE COUNCIL OF THE AIR LINE PILOTS ASSOCIATION, INTERNATIONAL Communications with respect to this document should be addressed to:
Michael G. Donatelli Chairman Delta Master Executive Council Air Line Pilots Association, International 100 Hartsfield Centre Parkway, Suite 800 Atlanta, Georgia 30354 Mike.Donatelli@alpa.org

October 17, 2014BEFORE THE DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION

WASHINGTON, D.C.

__________________________________________ ) Motion s and Application of ) ) AMERICAN AIRLINES , INC. ) HAW AIIAN AIRLINES, INC. ) Docket DOT

- OST

- 2010

- 0018 ) i n the matter of 2010 U.S.

- Haneda ) Combination Services Allocation Proceeding ) __________________________________________)
CONSOLIDATED ANSWER OF THE DELTA MASTER EXECUTIVE COUNCIL OF THE AIR LINE PILOTS ASSOCIATION, INTERNATIONAL The Delta Master Executive Council, th e Delta chapter of the Air Line P ilots Association,
Int ernational (the “Delta MEC”) hereby answers in opposition to the Motion and Application of American Airlines, Inc. (“Motion”) asking the DOT to strip from Delta two slots used for
Seattle

- Haneda service even though Delta has been and will continue to provide service on the

route in full com pliance with the DOT’s explicit dormancy condition s
. The Delta MEC urges
that American’s Motion be rejected and its application be dismissed.
We note that Hawaiian Airlines filed an Answer supporting American’s Motion , but opposing American’s Applicati on . O bviously Hawaiian is hoping to poach the slots from Seattle

to add yet more service at Hawaii , which already enjoys three Haneda flights

. Hawaiian’s
Answer is equally without merit and adds nothing of significance to American’s brazen and improper attempt to deprive Seattle and the Pacific Northwest of their only nonstop Haneda
service

. The Delta MEC represents the interests of 12,000 pilots working in concert with the 80,000 dedicated employees of Delta . In 2012 , the Delta MEC strongly supported Delta’s effortsDelta MEC Answer Page 2
to establish Seattle

- Haneda service. Seattle is an important

– and growing

– international hub gateway for Delta, providing quality U.S. jobs for Delta pilots, ground staff, and in

- flight personnel. T he Department agreed that the public interest was best served by making an award
to Delta for Seattle

- Haneda service

. 1 The same public interest considerations relied upon by the Department to make the award for Seattle service over America’s LAX proposal and Hawaiian’ s Kona proposal in 2012 support the MEC’s call for dismissal of the current American and Hawaiian requests.
American and Hawaiian make the absurd argument that Delta’s temporary seasonal
reduction at Seattle is grounds for summary withdrawal of the slots

-- and that the Seattle gateway slots should be put at risk for possible reallocation to the already well served Los Angeles or Hawaii Haneda gateways

. Neither American nor Hawaiian does claim , n or could they claim , that Delta’s winter season schedules on the Seattle

- Haneda route are contrary to the express 90 day dormancy condition of Order 2013

- 2

- 4. Seasonal flight schedule reductions (especially in the off

- peak winter season) are common in many international markets. And, as pointed out by Delta in its Answer, American has taken extensive scheduling liberties with its own limited entry frequencies in Brazil, allowing them to be dormant for periods of 90 days or more over the last decade. Given the challenges that all carriers providing mainland U.S

. - Haneda service have experienced, including American Airlines on its abandoned JFK to Haneda route, Delta’s temporary reduction in the 2014/2015
winter season is appropriate and consistent with this long standing airline practice. We note that
Delta’s Se attle hub is growing rapidly and substantially : there will be more Delta and Delta

connection flights supporting Haneda from summer 2015 going forward.

1 Show Cause Order 2012

- 11

- 12; Final Order 2013

- 2

- 4.Delta MEC Answer Page 3 Of critical significance to American’s Motion and Hawaiian’s “pile

- on” Answer is the
fact that Delta’s current reduction in winter flight operations is fully consistent with all applicable dormancy condition s
. Simply put, Delta’s slots are not dormant. Furthermore , American and Hawaiian gloss over the fact that Delta is planning to operate and has publis hed
schedules for daily Seattle

- Haneda service starting in summer 2015

. Delta is not walking away from Seattle

- Haneda as American w alked away from New
York

- Haneda just last year , at that time ignor ing the opportunity to apply for service at Los Angeles. American now claims its Los Angeles

- Haneda proposal is a “credible, well

- considered service plan” (Motion, page 5) which is exactly what American claimed about its New York

Haneda service proposal when it applied for slots in the original 2010 Haneda pr oceeding.
T oday there are tw o daily flights on the LAX

- HND route , whereas American had JFK

- HND to itself before voluntarily exiting last year

. And, not only did American leave JFK

- HND, it turned
all of its New York

– Tokyo flying (including JFK

- Narita) over to its foreign flag alliance partner, JAL. Thus, where previously American operated one JFK

- NRT flight, and JAL operated the other JFK

- NRT , today there is no U.S. flag JFK

- Tokyo service offered by the
alliance , with JAL doing all the flying for onewo rld. If Los Angeles was so important to American, it would have at least attempted to apply to move the slots to LAX, rather than abandoning them only to have United add still more California service at San Fran c isco. Moreover, an award of Haneda slots to American effectively doubles one world’s presen c e relative to Delta because American and JAL engage in reciprocal antitrust immunized codesharing, to say nothing of the benefits oneworld enjoys at Haneda by virtue of JAL’s huge slot holdings and large hub operation at this constrained airport.Delta MEC Answer Page 4 The action urged by American and Hawaiian is contrary to the express terms of DOT’s Ordering conditions, contrary to DOT precedent, and would violate well established principles of fundamental fairness and due pro cess under applicable federal law

. The slots used by Delta for
Seattle

- Haneda service cannot be summarily revoked . And, i t is certainly not in the interest of the traveling public to put a cloud over Delta’s Seattle

- Haneda slots while Delta is in the pro cess
of build ing its Seattle hub to provide , among other be nefits, maximum connecting opportunities
and additional traffic.
DOT specifically fashioned the dormancy clause to allow for the very type of seasonal
variations in service at issue here ; no car rier should be penalized for using the flexibility allowed by the Department. T his is especially true when carriers ha ve firm plans to resume service, or offer higher levels of service, as Delta does on the Seattle

- Haneda route . If all it takes is the filing of a motion (with no notice that the DOT intended to deviate from its stated conditions) , for the DOT to place the incumbent carrier’s permanent authority at issue, the DOT will chill and
deter the willingness of carriers t o make the investment s in developing new route s . It would be extremely bad policy , and contrary to law as set forth in the Administrative Procedure Act and applicable federal case law, for the DOT to reverse course and put the Seattle

- Haneda slots at
issue in a route case when Delta is operating them pursuant to the terms of the original award.
Delta’s two Haneda slots were awarded on a n indefinite basis provided that the stated
conditions of Order 2013

- 2

- 4 were met

. Nothing contained in the Amer ican or Hawaiian pleading provide any legal or public interest basis to justify the withdrawal of the Seattle

- Haneda
slots from Delta, much less the institution of another Haneda carrier selection proceeding. For all of these reasons, the Delta MEC strongly opposes the inappropriate, unwise, and unlawful initiatives of American and Hawaiian to disturb the duly awarded Seattle

- Haneda slots.Delta MEC Answer Page 5

Respectfully submitted,

Michael G. Donatelli Chairman Delta Master Executive Council Air Line Pilots Associ ation, International 100 Hartsfield Centre Parkway, Suite 800 Atlanta, Georgia 30354 Mike.Donatelli@alpa.orgCERTIFICATE OF SERVICE

A copy of the foregoing document has been served this 17 th day of October, 2014, upon the following persons via email:
howard.kass@aa.com abigail.donovan@aa.com robert.wirick@aa.com charles.hunnicut@thompsonhine.com patricia.snyder @thomsponhine.com jhill@cooley.com perkmann@cooley.com bberlin@cooley.com dan.weiss@united.com thomas.bolling@united.com steve.morrissey@united.com lhalloway@crowell.com gmurphy@crowell.com Mike.Donatelli@alpa.org dino.atsalis@alpa.org Doug.Ralph@alpa.org Ishiwata.K@portseattle.org Safora.I@portseattle.org sascha.vanderbellen@delta.com chris.walker@delta.com paul.gretch@dot.gov brian.hedberg@dot.gov brett.kruger@dot.gov todd.homan@dot.gov peter.irvine@dot.gov englets@state.gov cristinasa@state.gov eugene_al ford@ita.doc.gov info@airlineinfo.com