As promised, some additional thoughts on the impact of the slot swap on Charlotte and the Carolinas. Let’s start by looking at the impact on Delta’s operations.

Delta is the second-largest airline at Charlotte/Douglas International Airport, from which it offers the following flights:

Atlanta (ATL): 10 times a day on mainline aircraft
Detroit (DTW): 5 times a day on a mix of mainline and large regional jets
Minneapolis-St.Paul (MSP): 4 times a day on a mix of mainline and large regional jets
New York City John F. Kennedy (JFK): 4 times a day on 50-seat regional jets
Mempis (MEM): 3 times a day on a mix of large and 50-seat regional jets
Cincinnati (CVG): 3 times a day on 50-seat regional jets
Salt Lake City (SLC): once a day on a mainline aircraft starting in March, mainly to force US Airways, which is also starting the route then, to give it up

So 29 flights a day currently, going to 30 in early March. Mainline (flown by Delta Air Lines proper and seating 125+) and large regional jets (flown by regional partners, and seat between 65 and 76) have first class. The 50-seat regional jets flown by regional partners do not have first class sections.

• As previously mentioned, Delta is acquiring 132 sets of slots at LaGuardia Airport (LGA) in New York City from US Airways. The Department of Transportation made the airline auction off 16 sets of slots (winners: eight each to JetBlue and WestJet). After all is said and done, US Airways will only fly to LGA from five places: Charlotte, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Boston, and Washington Reagan National. So how will Delta use the 116 slots sets it net out of the deal? US Airways has or soon will be dropping service to LGA from many airports across the Carolinas (Raleigh, Greensboro, Wilmington, Charleston, Columbia, Asheville). Delta already flies some of these routes. Will it increase frequency and/or aircraft size on those routes? Will it pick up the remainder that it doesn’t serve now?

• Or for that matter, does Delta resume CLT-LGA flights? (They flew the route in 2007 and 2008). And if so, on what type of aircraft? 50-seat regional jets or something larger with first class to better compete with the US Airways and American Airlines jets on the route? And if Delta adds CLT-LGA flights, what happens to its existing four-daily JFK flights? (Kennedy is also slot restricted but that those restrictions matter only during part of the day.)

• Delta has got to find the planes to fly those extra LaGuardia routes. Candidates for where they come from include the airline’s ever shrinking hubs in Cincinnati and Memphis. How many flights a day total will it have a year from now from CLT to these two cities? It would not surprise if a year from now, the number were lower than the current six — and the answer could even be as low as zero.