Yeah, we knew that US Airways and Delta Air Line’s proposed slot-swap centered mainly on Washington’s Reagan National and NYC’s LaGuardia airport was pretty much dead after the DOT required the airlines to sell off some slots as a requirement for approving the deal. There remained the possibility though that the two airlines might achieve some of the same objectives — increase Delta’s presence at LGA, and US Airways’ position at DCA — by simply leasing some (but not all) of the slots that would have been traded to each other.

And that actually seems to have been the plan. US Airways did load into reservation systems last month plans for four new routes from DCA — Montreal, Ottawa, Birmingham, and Tallahassee — effective October 3 but never issued a press release announcing the service. The source of the slots for these routes was not obvious at the time, especially in the longer term.

The answer has become clear the in last day or so: Delta today put out this press release today announcing seven new routes from DCA. And those four new US Airways routes from Reagan National no longer are showing up. So it would seem that whatever lease deal US Airways and Delta had worked out is now kaput. Will have to see what impact, if any, this has at CLT.

CLT-GRU update: Another sign, of course, that the slot swap was dead (but not necessarily deader) was US Airways proposed deal to lease daily slots at Sao Paulo, Brazil, from United for four years. US Airways had previously sourced Sao Paulo rights from Delta as part of the slot swap. No other airlines have objected to the United transaction, which makes it much more likely that flights will begin in January.