This winter’s “snowcrete” storm cost Reagan National Airport some passengers, but the looming spring-break season may turn things around.
January’s enplanements at Reagan National stood at just over 820,000, down 5.1% from a year before, according to data presented March 18 to the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA) board of directors.
That decline comes despite major flight restrictions on Jan. 30-31, 2025, owing to the deadly collision between a U.S. Army helicopter and American Airlines regional jet over the Potomac River adjacent to the airport.
Three factors may have contributed to the year-over-year decrease:
- This year’s late-January snowstorm, which essentially shut down airports across much of the East Coast, including National
- The ongoing impact of federal-government cutbacks that have rippled through the regional economy
- A slight uptick in passenger traffic in January 2025 because of events surrounding President Donald Trump’s inauguration
Of the two airports operated by MWAA, Reagan National bore the brunt of the downturn. At Dulles International Airport, January traffic declined 2.4% year-over-year, hitting just over 930,000 passengers.
Despite the challenges, final travel figures for February are expected to be positive, said Chryssa Westerlund, the authority’s executive vice president and chief revenue officer.
Westerlund told MWAA board members that some of the travelers impacted in late January later completed their flights. “We captured some of that traffic in early February,” she said.
The Presidents’ Day holiday weekend period (Feb. 13-16) was strong at both Dulles and Reagan National, officials said.
“People still want to fly,” said Thomas Beatty, the authority’s executive vice president and chief operating officer.
One indicator of the strength over the Presidents’ Day weekend: Parking revenue at Reagan National was up 17% year-over-year, Westerlund said.
With winter weather most likely in the rear-view mirror, local airport officials are now looking toward the upcoming spring-break season.
“We are excited and ready to welcome the surge,” Westerlund said.
Spring break will be March 30 to April 3 for most Northern Virginia school districts, including those in Arlington and Falls Church. Private schools have varying dates, with Bishop O’Connell High School’s Easter break running from April 2-10.
Mideast war impacting Dulles passenger totals: About two-thirds of flights to the broader Middle East region have been canceled since the start of the conflict between the U.S., Israel and Iran, MWAA president/CEO Jack Potter told the authority’s board of directors at their March 18 meeting.
Middle East air traffic accounts for about 10% of international travel through Dulles, Potter said. In 2025, international traffic at the airport set a record of 10.5 million passengers.
In addition to service by the airport’s dominant carrier, United Airlines, direct connections from Dulles to the Mideast are provided in normal times by Egyptair, Emirates, Etihad, Royal Jordanian and Saudia. Other carriers at the airport offer Mideast service through connecting flights.
Among the impacts: Emirates, which normally offers one daily Airbus A380 flight between Dulles and Dubai, canceled flights through March 15 and has now resumed them with smaller Boeing 777 aircraft operating three times per week.
While losing much of its Mideast service for the time being, Potter said Dulles has been the host airport for nearly two dozen charter repatriation flights, which brought home American residents — and, in many cases, their animals — after the conflict began three weeks ago.
