According to a Wednesday-announced partnership, Delta Air Lines and US Airways - both of which offer flights to and from Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport - would swap several takeoff and landing privileges at New York's La Guardia Airport and Washington's Ronald Reagan National Airport.

Specifically speaking, the swapping of slots and pairs of slots - a slot comprising one takeoff or landing; a pair of slots comprising one roundtrip - will work thus: while Delta will give US Airways 42 pairs of its slots at National; US Airways will give Delta 125 of its slots at La Guardia. In addition, Delta will also give US Airways the right to expand service to Sao Paulo, Brazil; and Tokyo, Japan.

The proposed 'cash neutral' swap, which has been planned as two concurrent asset sales, is subject to government regulatory approval.

Once the deal comes through, the current shuttle flights of Delta and US Airways, from La Guardia to Washington and Boston, will exchange terminals at La Guardia. As such, the Delta shuttles, which presently start off from La Guardia's Marine Air Terminal will shift to the Delta terminal; while the US Airways shuttles will occupy the Marine Air Terminal.

With the arrangement in place, Delta will have 27 gates at La Guardia handling 272 daily departures, and US Airways will have nearly 72 daily flights from the same airport.