Virginia’s senators are stepping up efforts to nix a proposal to add five more round-trip flights to Reagan National Airport.
Sen. Tim Kaine — with the support of fellow Virginia Sen. Mark Warner and five other Democratic senators from Maryland, Colorado and Illinois — has proposed to strike the extra flights from a bill to reauthorize the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
“The proposal in the bill is directly contrary to the safety of 25 million people who use this airport, is directly contrary to the safety of neighborhoods surrounding this airport, and will take an already overburdened, delay- and cancel-prone airport and make matters much worse,” Kaine said in a Wednesday floor speech.
A fleet of arguments for and against the additional flights has circulated since the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation on Monday presented the reauthorization bill, which has a deadline of next Friday, May 10.
Proponents include Sen. Ted Cruz, who dismissed criticism as “propaganda” from “the army of United Airlines lobbyists who are working to protect their Dulles monopoly.”
United operates about 220 daily flights out of Dulles International Airport and is a member of the Coalition to Protect America’s Regional Airports, created to oppose additional DCA flights.
“I have to say, it’s not in the interests of any senator to support a policy that reduces competition, enhances monopoly products for one airline, United Airlines, and drives up the prices not only for the residents of Virginia and D.C. and Maryland, but for the residents of all 50 states who come to our nation’s capital,” the Texas senator said.
Overshadowing the debate is a near-collision between two commercial flights on the DCA tarmac last month, as first reported by ARLnow. Kaine argued that more takeoffs out of the 1.3-square-mile airport, home to the busiest runway in the country, will worsen safety issues and add more delays.
Experts have conflicting thoughts on the topic.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg testified yesterday (Thursday) that he is concerned about impacts on airport operations.
“If there is any kind of condition where the tower is overburdened, the only alternative to allowing an unsafe condition — which the FAA will never do — is a likelihood of delays or some kind of flow process that could impact travelers,” he said.
By contrast, former FAA Administrator Stephen Dickson has thrown his weight behind efforts to increase flights. In a Tuesday letter he accused critics of “exploiting and mischaracterizing safety concerns to further a legislative agenda“ and pointed to recent advances in the airport’s capabilities.
“The time is right to increase flights to utilize these investments,” he wrote. “The FAA has successfully added modest capacity at DCA in the past and is capable and prepared to do so again.”
Taking a more neutral stance is current FAA Administrator Michael Whitaker, who testified in February, “It is an airport that is very close to capacity. There are some hours where there’s some room for new capacity, but it is, as you know, a pretty full operation.”
The current proposal is a more modest version of a failed bill last year that would have allowed for 28 extra flights out of DCA. An analysis by the Capital Access Alliance — a business coalition created to support more flights — found that these takeoffs and landings could slot into “underutilized time blocks” without adding delays.
Reportedly contradicting this is the FAA itself, which, according to a press release from Virginia and Maryland’s senators, found that five more round-trip flights would cumulatively increase delays at the airport by about 12 hours every day.
In an informal ARLnow poll last May, 51% of readers said they “definitely support” more flight options at DCA. Another poll found that 81% of respondents prefer flying out of DCA, while half said they would only fly out of Dulles if absolutely necessary.
Asked in February about the matter, Whitaker said, “We will always make sure [the airport] is operating safely. If something suffers, it’ll be efficiency.”
