Southwest and JetBlue both sought all nine of the new slots; Delta requested two. Airport management, working with the City Attorney's office and outside counsel, made the decision to allocate four of the slots to Southwest, three to JetBlue and two to Delta.

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Southwest now has to determine if the four slots make starting operations from LB financially viable for the company.

In a release today (Feb. 10), Southwest indicated that from its multiple California airports, it plans to cumulatively offer "a combined peak weekday schedule of 678 departures to destinations across the United States, Mexico, and Liberia, Costa Rica (subject to foreign government approval)."

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On January 19, 2016 six LB Councilmembers (Gonzalez, Lowenthal, Price, Mungo, Andrews and Richardson) voted to authorize spending $300,000+ from Airport revenue to hire a firm to prepare what management calls a "comprehensive feasibility study" on whether to allow a federal inspection facility (customs) at LB airport; three Councilmembers (Supernaw, Uranga and Austin) dissented on the Jan. 2016, the same Council split visible on a July 2015 vote to approve pursuing the feasibility study.

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In seeking Council approval for the "feasibility study," Airport management told the Council that in January 2015, JetBlue formally requested that the City seek federal permission to install a federal customs facility, but internal Airport documents obtained by LBREPORT.com under the CA Public Records Act and published in mid-2014 show that former LB Airport management worked through much of 2013 -- without Council voted authority -- to pursue the possibility of adding a customs facility and did so with the cooperation JetBlue.

Former Airport management advised the Council by August and November 2013 memos of its activities, but none of the then-Council incumbents disclosed the developments entering the 2014 citywide election cycle (which elected five new Councilmembers and elected Councilman/Vice Mayor Robert Garcia as Mayor.)

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In Feb. 2015, former LB Airport Advisory Commissioner (and Long Beach City Prosecutor) Doug Haubert testified to LB's Airport Advisory Commission that he believes allowing a customs facility could invite new, and unprecedented, levels of risk for the city's protective Airport ordinance. If a Council majority were to allow a customs facility, it couldn't be limited to JetBlue or any particular international operators, cargo or passenger. If any number of international passenger or cargo operator(s) -- incentivized by a customs facility to seek LB Airport flight slots not available under LB's ordinance -- were to challenge LB's Airport ordinance in court and prevail, the City could lose its current ability to protect the City and its neighborhoods from unlimited flights at all hours (no nighttime curfew) on all runways (including those currently protected from large aircraft.)

Filling the nine new slots again leaves LB Airport without any vacant large flight slots available under the Airport ordinance.

City management, the City Attorney's office and virtually all Councilmembers have said that the Airport ordinance is an extremely valuable City asset and must be protected. JetBlue has said publicly and repeatedly that it intends to operate under the terms of LB's Airport ordinance. A Southwest press release (below) includes no such statement...and neither JetBlue nor Southwest can control what other operators might do. However, as City Prosecutor Haubert pointed out, allowing a customs facility would for the first time potentially expose the the City's protective ordinance to the risk of a challenge from an entirely new category of international passenger and cargo operators.

Salient portions of Southwest's Feb. 10 release are below:

[Southwest Airlines Feb. 10 release text] Southwest Airlines Co. (NYSE: LUV) today confirmed its interest and application to bring more low-fare service to Greater Los Angeles by adding new Southwest® service in 2016 at Long Beach Airport. Working with the City of Long Beach, the carrier this week formally applied for slot authority to offer new service, subject to requisite approvals. Southwest’s operation at Long Beach would be an addition to the carrier's greater Los Angeles presence at Los Angeles (LAX), Burbank, Orange County/Santa Ana, and Ontario.

"Long Beach would make it five for five in greater L.A. for Southwest and would give us another service point to fulfill our promise to connect our California Customers not only to what's important, but also to where is important in planning business, vacation, or personal travel plans," said Gary Kelly, Southwest's Chairman, President, & CEO, standing before an Employee rally in Las Vegas. "Nobody can match the value you all bring to air travel with our world-famous hospitality, and no one can offer California what we do on a daily basis, especially with the attractive addition of our low-fare service at Long Beach."

Employees gathered at a satellite viewing location in downtown Los Angeles cheered the rally announcement that would add a tenth California airport to the Southwest route map. The Company continues to plan for 2016 year-over-year available seat mile growth in the 5-6 percent range. Southwest offers more daily departures from California airports than any other airline, 160 of which are intrastate flights landing within the state, connecting 19 unique California city-pair combinations as of summer 2016. Southwest's California airports will offer a combined peak weekday schedule of 678 departures to destinations across the United States, Mexico, and Liberia, Costa Rica (subject to foreign government approval). Southwest not only carries more Californians within the state each day, the airline brings more air travelers to and from California daily than any other carrier, according to the most recent statistics reported by the U.S. Department of Transportation.