A shorter commute: Lawmakers, lobbyists argued over adding flights at busy Reagan airport
An intense lobbying campaign played out over the last two years over whether to allow additional flights out of Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, the scene of the catastrophic mid-air collision Wednesday night.
The number of flights at Reagan National is capped because of its congestion. But lawmakers have an interest in boosting direct flights to their states – for themselves and their constituents – because the airport is more convenient to downtown than Dulles International Airport, which is also managed by the Metropolitan Washington Airport Authority. Ultimately, five new flights were approved last year but have yet to begin.
Reagan National and Dulles each handled about the same number of passengers last year – around 26 million. But airport operators who opposed adding flights at National, which is hemmed in by the Potomac River, said its runways are designed to handle about 15 million passengers a year.
Against this backdrop, lawmakers often battle for direct flights to their own states. During 2023 and 2024, proposed legislation sought to add 28 flights at Reagan National across seven airlines. Anti-expansion legislators argued more flights would exacerbate the congestion issues and reduce safety.
The skirmish spilled into the pages of the Wichita Eagle in Kansas, which celebrated the addition of a direct flight to Reagan, which uses the airport code DCA, that began in January 2023. Former United Airlines pilot and Kansas state Sen. Michael Murphy argued for dropping the restrictions and adding more flights.
“When you’re a pilot, safety comes first. While DCA is indeed a busy airport, if adding more flights at DCA wasn’t safe, I wouldn’t endorse such an idea,” Murphy wrote, slamming United, his former employer, for opposing the idea at the time.
United, which has a significant presence at Dulles about 25 miles from National, fought adding flights at National because of concern that more flights there would result in cuts elsewhere.
But Delta Air Lines lobbied to expand flights at National to compete with Dulles. Delta went so far as to create its own nonprofit, the Capital Access Alliance, that mounted a lobbying and social media campaign, funded also by Western-state industries. The organization is now defunct. A spokeswoman for Delta declined to answer questions.
In total, Delta spent about $5.2 million in lobbying in 2023 and another $4.2 million in 2024, according to disclosures compiled by OpenSecrets. United spent about $11.5 million over the period. American Airlines also opposed the changes and spent $8.1 million overall.
The legislation for 28 flights failed, but portions of the expansion were written back into the Federal Aviation Administration’s reauthorization bill last year. The effort gained support from prominent western state legislators like Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas; Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash.; and Rep. Burgess Owens, R-Utah.
Days later in May, President Joe Biden signed the bipartisan reauthorization into law with a stripped down five additional flights from Reagan National direct to: Seattle-Tacoma for Delta, San Antonio for American, San Francisco for United, Las Vegas for Southwest Airlines, and San Diego for Alaska Airlines. The Delta-backed lobby group celebrated.
A group of Democrats including Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine of Virginia and Sens. Ben Cardin and Chris Van Hollen of neighboring Maryland opposed the expansion last year. They warned it would, “increase delays and risk safety at DCA.”
The group wrote in an op-ed that the overburdened DCA already had the third worst cancellation rate among airports and cited delays averaging 67 minutes in 2020-2022.
“It should go without saying that the safety of the flying public must be our primary focus, particularly as a number of high-profile incidents and near-misses have brought home in a concrete way the need to safeguard the complex and interconnected infrastructure that keeps the National Airspace System safe,” they warned.
Another facet of the debate over Reagan National is an arcane rule about how far its flights can travel. A 1960s-era “perimeter rule” that limits the number of flights allowed to take off and land farther than 1,250 miles from the airport.
That means Miami, New Orleans, Chicago, Minneapolis are easy to visit. Passengers heading to San Antonio, Albuquerque, Reno have to connect at a hub airport. Passengers heading to Las Vegas, San Francisco and Salt Lake have restricted directs.
“Reagan National is the only airport in the country that Congress has decreed that a plane may travel no further than 1,250 miles,” Cruz said last May on the Senate floor. “It is absurd, and it’s unfair to millions of flyers who are forced to pay higher prices because of this rule.”
The late Sen. John McCain notably fought hard against the perimeter rule during his long tenure in the Senate. He led one effort in 1999 to repeal the rule that failed, but ultimately helped lead the exemption that included three daily nonstop flights between Washington and Phoenix.
McCain, who died in 2018, stubbornly refused to take the new nonstop in order avoid the appearance that he wanted it only to shorten his commute.
This story has been updated with the 12-month passenger count for Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.