Smaller airlines to DOT: Give us access to NYC airports

A handful of low-cost airlines are urging the Transportation Department to make up its mind already on possible changes for access to New York’s popular airports.

But the largest airlines that now dominate service at LaGuardia, JFK and Newark airports have strenuously resisted any possible changes in the allocation of "slots," which grant an airline the right for a takeoff or landing at all three of the congested and capacity-controlled New York City-area airports.

The department hasn’t set any deadline for taking action in the contentious dispute, which it has been mulling since January.

The latest development is that Alaska, Allegiant, Frontier, Spirit and Virgin America wrote a joint letter Tuesday urging federal officials to break the “vise grip” that big airlines have on New York-area airports.

The smaller airlines call themselves "new entrants" and say they control less than 2% of the slots at the three airports. Meanwhile, American, Delta and United control 91% of the slots at Newark, 88% at LaGuardia and 63% at JFK.

The concern now is that slots rarely change hands outside of merger deals or slot-swap transactions, which historically have mostly rearranged slots between the already dominant airlines. A 2013 auction priced slots at $3.7 million each.

RELATED: United, Delta agree to swap slots at Newark, JFK airports

The smaller airlines are urging federal officials to take away any slots that aren’t used at least 80% of the time by the same flight or series of flights. They want to ease smaller trading of slots, with stronger federal review reserved for any transaction involving eight or more slots.

And they’d like to set minimum-size requirements on planes using the slots. The smaller carriers argue that the large carriers use smaller planes to meet their flight obligations rather than flying as many people as possible to and from the New York area.

If those steps didn’t work, the Transportation secretary should consider simply awarding slots to the smaller airlines to spur competition, the airlines argued.

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​Alaska chief commercial officer Andrew Harrison, Allegiant CEO Maurice Gallagher, Frontier President Barry Biffle, Spirit CEO Ben Baldanza and Virgin America CEO David Cush signed the letter that also went to the White House and Justice Department.

“Only this will restore competition and create the lower fare options needed by the traveling public,” the airlines wrote to Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx and Michael Huerta, head of the Federal Aviation Administration.

“Indeed for many travelers, including tourists, families and groups, and small businesses, traveling to or from New York is a financial hardship or even prohibitively expensive.”

But among the 115 comments that the FAA received on the issue, the "Big 3" airlines argued that changes aren’t needed.

United called the proposals “unnecessary, counter-productive and premised on inaccurate assumptions.” United said the changes would lead to more rigid schedules that would prevent airlines from meeting changing demands.

Delta called proposed changes in the requirement for using a slot 80% of the time “radical and detrimental” to confiscate slots.