DC also has cheap airfares; there are no slot restrictions at either BWI or IAD.
As far as THE preferred airport, I lived in the DC area and would always want to fly out of BWI or IAD because parking around DCA is both expensive and in short supply. Not to mention the traffic congestion.
As far as vacationers, all they care about is the cheapest price. If it's DCA, great. If it's BWI or IAD, they'll fly into there. And the same goes for many business utravelers.
Barger's argument about divesting AMR of slots out of DCA is that no single airline should have that much concentration in a single slot controlled airport. Fine. Just make sure that policy is applied evenly across the board. If Barger wants AMR to have no more than 40% of the slots at DCA, then Jetblue should offer up any slots they have greater than 40% of LGB traffic. It is apples and apples because we're talking about two slot controlled airports. And while we're at it, how about Jetblue give up some of their JFK slots to other carriers that don't have as many slots as Jetblue at JFK?
Or is this more about Jetblue trying to grab some slots at DCA while giving up nothing?