Long Beach, JetBlue disagree on airport slots

The city pushes to end gate hoarding by carriers. Airline says the move is punitive.

The city of Long Beach is moving to end an airline hoarding practice known as “slot squatting,” and that has JetBlue Airways seeing red.

Long Beach Airport officials say some gate slots — the scheduled times that a plane can land or depart — are being underused, and they worry that some airlines may be doing this on purpose to take up space and keep competitors out of the airport.

To address the problem, the Long Beach City Council unanimously adopted a resolution Tuesday requiring that all airlines increase the average use of each slot for takeoffs and landings from 57% over a 180-day stretch to a minimum of 60% for every calendar month, 70% per three-month quarter and 85% per calendar year.

In a letter to the City Council, Long Beach Airport Director Jess Romo said he was worried that “air carriers have the ability to essentially ‘slot squat’ on flights without permanently returning the underutilized flight slots.”

The resolution calls for penalties for airlines that don’t meet the minimum slot use, such as cutting back on the slots allocated to those violators. Long Beach officials say the proposed utilization averages are similar to those at nearby John Wayne Airport in Orange County.

But JetBlue, the largest carrier at Long Beach Airport with about 70% of all flights, opposes the change, calling the new rules punitive and unfair and accusing the city of targeting JetBlue.

“Such unjustified and unnecessary changes as the ones yet again proposed appear to be nothing more than punitive and discriminatory to JetBlue,” airline Associate General Counsel Robert Land said in a letter to the city.

Southwest Airlines, which began serving Long Beach in 2016 and now operates about 14% of flights there, supports the change.

“An increased utilization requirement at [Long Beach] would not only enhance the efficient use of these scarce assets but would also be consistent with FAA utilization policies at its own slot-controlled airports,” Southwest Associate General Counsel Barry Brown said in a letter to the city.

American’s logo gets copyright pushback

American Airlines created its newest logo in 2013, partly to help launch an overhaul of the brand for what would eventually become the world’s largest carrier.

But five years later, the Fort Worth airline has yet to settle a dispute with the U.S. Copyright Office, which has repeatedly refused to register the stylized logo, intended to resemble an eagle with blue and red wings.

The dispute centers on whether the logo is original or creative enough.

Three times American Airlines submitted the logo for copyright registration, which allows the carrier to sue anyone who breaches the copyright. Three times the copyright office rejected the request.

The American Airlines logo already has trademark protection, which is usually reserved for symbols and slogans. A copyright is typically used to protect artistic and intellectual work.

The copyright office has argued that the symbol “does not contain a sufficient amount of original and creative artistic or graphic authorship” to support a copyright registration and that the work is nothing more than a collection of common and familiar shapes.

In its most recent rejection, the copyright office described the logo as “a dualcolored, curved trapezoid with a bisecting, shaded and curved triangle.”

After the most recent rejection, American Airlines filed a lawsuit, naming Karyn Temple, the acting head of the agency. The carrier argued in its lawsuit that the logo, created by FutureBrand, a global design agency, is highly creative and stylized and has won the praises of many graphic designers.

The airline also argued that the copyright office had previously approved copyright protection for logos with what the carrier considered to be low levels of creativity, including the symbol for Marvel’s “X-Men” movie franchise and the Vince Lombardi Trophy for winners of the Super Bowl.

The feud may be near the end. The copyright office recently announced that it is reconsidering its rejection of the logo, prompting American Airlines to withdraw its lawsuit against Temple.