17 Cities Axed On D.C. Flight Routes

Detroit, Minneapolis, San Diego and 14 other cities will lose their direct American Airlines flights from Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, the newly merged airline announced Wednesday, blaming the cuts on slots it had to give up as a condition of its merger with US Airways.

American is also cutting three direct flights from New York’s LaGuardia Airport.

The airline said it will announce the timing of the changes “in the coming weeks.”

It has to surrender some of its slots at both airports and others nationwide under an agreement late last year with the Justice Department, which had sued to block the merger on the grounds that it would give the new American Airlines too much control over much of the nation’s aviation market. Many of those slots will probably be scooped up by low-cost competitors like Southwest and JetBlue — but whatever airlines win those slots will decide which cities to serve.
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