Four airlines including American Airlines ask DOT to give them a pair of Reagan Washington National slots

Four airlines have applied for a pair of slots at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport so they can offer one round trip a day out of the close-in airport.

Included on the list is American Airlines, which is hoping to get the two slots just as it is surrendering 104 other slots to settle a U.S. Department of Justice lawsuit.

Here are the applicants, including the three carriers that put in their applications Tuesday, the deadline for applying:

American proposes

to offer a daily round trip to Islip, N.Y., on Long Island. It would use 50-seat Bombardier CRJ 200 jets

Southwest Airlines

proposes to offer a daily round trip to Kansas City, Mo., continuing the service it began offering Feb. 1 on a temporary award. It would continue using 143-seat Boeing 737-700 jets

American’s merger partner, US Airways, currently offers two flights a day on the Islip-Washington route. The service is operated by Air Wisconsin, a third-party carrier flying under the US Airways Express brand.

But the AA schedule indicates that the service will end on July 2 as American Airlines Group surrenders slots per its antitrust settlement with the DOJ. In its application, American references the settlement. (DCA refers to Reagan Washington.)

As a result of the AAG Slot Divestiture, AA was forced to make hard choices to discontinue DCA service to a number of communities both large and small. Absent the requirement to divest slots at DCA, Islip would not lose its nonstop DCA service.

“Nevertheless, AAG’s commitment to small communities remains solid. In the past year, AA committed to Congress that the company would not voluntarily discontinue serving any markets served by legacy AA and/or US Airways; signed an agreement with the Plaintiff states to maintain air service to all communities (large and small) in those states; and announced new service to 10 smaller communities – including Dayton, Ohio; Greensboro, North Carolina; Little Rock, Arkansas; Louisville, Kentucky; and Norfolk, Virginia – from New York-LaGuardia, a slot-constrained airport.

“No other U.S. airline is more committed to smaller communities than AA, and this application reaffirms that commitment. The Department now has a unique opportunity to similarly reaffirm its recent support for providing DCA access to small communities.”

As it so happens, Southwest and JetBlue were the primary beneficiaries of the AAG slot divestiture. Southwest picked up 27 slot pairs (eschewing a 28

pair that was good only for a weekend flight), and JetBlue picked up 12 new slot pairs and gained permanent possession of eight other slot pairs that it had been leasing from American.

The pair of slots up for grabs in the latest DOT competition had been owned by Midwest Airlines, which was purchased in 2009 by Republic Airways Holdings. Two months later, Republic also bought Frontier Airlines. As Republic combined Midway and Frontier Airlines into Frontier, Frontier took over the Kansas City-Washington route.

Republic spun off Frontier to private investors late in 2013. Frontier gave up the Kansas City-DCA route as of Feb. 1, and the DOT temporarily granted the rights to Southwest Airlines while the department decided who would get the slots permanently.

Tuesday was the deadline to apply for the routes. The

U.S. Department of Transportation

, which began the process on March 5, gave interested parties until Tuesday, April 1, for commenting or, to use the technical term, trash-talking about other airlines’ applications.

Here’s a taste of the arguments in the other airlines’ applications.