The current draft of the Senate’s FAA reauthorization bill includes 10 new beyond-perimeter slots for Washington’s National airport. Currently, flights out of that airport are restricted to 1,250 miles except for a handful of exceptions provided in law and handed out by the Department of Transportation. The full Senate is expected to vote on this bill and then it will go to the House.
Delta started a lobbying campaign to increase the number of slot exemptions. They sought 28 new roundtrips a day authorized, and of course they’d gain many of those for themselves. This faced significant pushback.
- United Airlines loves slot restrictions at National, because it protects longer flights from their hub at Washington Dulles
- American Airlines has the largest portfolio of slots at National, and wants to make sure its relative position isn’t eroded
- Neighborhood groups complain about everything, and somehow a handful of additional flights were going to make unacceptable amounts of noise even though they choose to live near an airport and planes are far quieter than in the past
National is one of the most on-time airports in the United States. When the slot system was set up, it was assumed that 10% of the airport’s traffic would be private jets. With post-9/11 security restrictions there are almost no private movements at the airport. It can handle some additional flying.
The current draft FAA reauthorization bill includes some new beyond-perimeter slots, though not nearly what Delta had originally asked for. Congress also isn’t leaving anything to chance with the FAA.
Instead of telling the agency ‘go figure out what airlines would offer the most useful service’ with these new slots, they’ve decided who gets them and who doesn’t.
Here’s current bill text. This is what it says:
- 8 of the new slots go to “non-limited incumbents” who are longstanding significant carriers at the airport
- 2 of the new slots go to “limited incumbents” who are less significant carriers at the airport
- 0 of the new slots go to “new entrants” who have few or no current slots
- 2 slot exemptions are created for each airline, therefore split across 5 airlines.
- DC’s airport authority is expressly not permitted to fine airlines for using these slots.
- None of these slots can convert existing within-perimeter slots to beyond-perimeter slots, so no one can credibly argue this will cause a loss of service to any city currently with flights to and from National.
As best I can tell, in current legislative language Congress has basically said these slots will be divvied out equally between American Airlines, Delta, United, Southwest and JetBlue. As such, there’s not even an opportunity here for Frontier, Alaska, or Spirit. Protecting incumbent airlines seems odd, except that those are the airlines best positioned to lobby the ones doing the protecting.
Wouldn’t Frontier and Alaska fall under the “limited Incumbents”? So, they each get one? Means Spirit is shut out. Overall, seems fair to me.
The question is what new routes will be added. I don’t see anything about increasing frequency on existing routes – so hope we see more than just a bunch of LAX and SFO flights.
AA will lose some overall market strength as 4 other carriers can carry traffic out of DCA to more destinations while UA will be the biggest loser as all new flights are certain to duplicate IAD flights.
Really hoping for a non-stop DCA/SAT from one of the blessed and anointed carriers.
Of course, longer flights in and out of DCA means fewer connections and more frequent flyer miles and higher elite status for members of Congress.
airlines comp elite status for Congress so not a consideration. It’s about getting Congress home on non-stop flights.
Adding more slots to an already very delay prone airport, what can go wrong,?
Concern is not so much on-time performance but just the physical capacity of the terminals… even with the new security setup the concourses are usually packed to the gills with lines of people running into each other at boarding. It’s not a pleasant experience.
Adam L Gary’s writeup said National is one of the most on-time airports.
@Adam L – there are several times throughout the day where there are fewer flight operations
@A220HubandSpoke – DCA was one of the most on-time airports in the world in 2023. It had an overall 83.2% on-time performance for the year. It outperformed Detroit, Seattle, Philadelphia and Doha and was only a smidge behind Salt Lake City.
Props to Gary for calling the airport by its actual name.
@JetAway – this was the specific flight Ted Cruz says he wants in pushing for new beyond-perimeter slots
@mikey b – I believe their current slot allocation of ~ 2% still qualifies them as new entrants
Dallas Love and Washington National should be made wide open. Dallas Love should be able to build a maximum of 20 new gates. National should be opened up to all. National doesn’t need service to every small city in the Midwest and East. IAD can serve them.
Let’s face it: if you’re a Congressman, getting a nonstop flight home to your District is probably the most important thing in the bill. I wouldn’t blame any Congressman for believing this. Heck, getting Congressmen back to their district efficiently IS an important government function.
One thing they need to do is build more parking garages because last couple times I was at DCA the parking garages were almost full. But I did see on the recent update from the airports authority that they plan to add a garage for DCA (i think that is what i saw on the plans)
@Gary
Understood there are times at which the terminals are not quite as full… Thursdays at 3pm being a good example. But that’s not when people fly and it’s likely that these new “prestige” out of perimeter flights will be scheduled at the most popular travel times, not the least.
Very bad idea—–close the palace down and create a world class Dulles
Frontier and Alaska are both “incumbent” airlines at DCA. In fact, Alaska has the second highest number of slot exemptions – 10. I could be wrong, but I tend to doubt there will be many new destinations. My guesses: Delta, the world’s only PERFECT airline, will probably add a frequency to LAX, as will American – the only airline on Earth that deserves to be liquidated. I can’t see Delta adding to SLC (although that’s possible). American already has three exemptions to PHX, which is probably adequate. But I can see American adding San Juan (if the demand is there).
I’m thinking United will probably double down on Denver, although LAX or SFO could be possibilities. Southwest will probably add San Antonio, although it may want to give American some grief at Las Vegas (if the market is there). JetBlue may not be interested in adding additional service outside of its core markets.
All of these are just guesses. But of course, all of this hinges on a bill actually being passed, and the way Congress is “functioning” nowadays, that may not be certain.
The hypocrisy here is mind blowing. The government stops Spirit from merging with jetblue in the name of competition but deny them any chance of entering DCA to protect the interests of the legacies. You can’t make this stuff up.
incumbent in this context doesn’t mean has a presence of some kind at the airport, neither frontier nor alaska have > 2% of slots at the airport.
Ghost,
AS’ existence at DCA is based on exemption slots. Given their national size, 10 flights at DCA is pretty reasonable.
F9 has exemptions including to DEN. They have more flights than UA so I wouldn’t be surprised if UA adds another.
DL did previously fly 2 SLC-DCA flights and, IIRC, moved one to LAX.
I would not be surprised if they add SEA.
AA has many west coast options or SAT or AUS.
I wouldn’t be surprised if WN also goes for DEN but could also do LAX or PHX or SAT or AUS.
Thank you for the clarification. It would ne nice if legislation was written in English.
In any event, I tend to think that 10 more slot exemptions will hardly “…**transform** air travel from DCA.”
It’ll be more like a slight hiccup, IMHO.
@Angry Gnome – Spirit voluntarily left DCA years ago.
Not sure why Gary is writing about this now. The Senate Commerce Committee reported this out a month ago (and the full body has not considered it).
The House however, voted down multiple proposals to add National flights in its FAA bill, which passed 351-69 in July 2023.
Tim,
Your comment about Alaska at DCA is quite astute. Given its size and geography its well represented.
Delta did indeed move its second SLC frequency to LAX. The possibility that DL could add Seattle is also a good call.
US Airways originally flew to San Diego from DCA, so that could be another possibility for AA.
Of course, all of this is dependent on a bill being enacted.
“About 1 in 5 flights into and out of DCA currently experience delays, which run 67 minutes on average, according to an FAA analysis that estimates adding 25 daily round trips would increase delays at the airport by 33.2 percent.”
https://punchbowl.news/2023-05-25-dca-air-service-analysis-memo/
You sure @Gary?
Can someone create the list of largest state capitals that do not have DCA nonstops
DCA doesn’t have flights to “every small city in the Midwest and East” — and that’s why a lot of the flights out of DCA are to other hub airports when it’s not to places with lots of military or government contractor-related traffic, state capitol areas or places where the large and relatively wealthier DC metro area transplants have relatives or lived previously.
You are badly misinformed about the neighborhood opposition. The flight paths into and out of DCA were changed in 2014 after no consultation with the affected communities. These changes shifted approach routes from over the Potomac River (aka “River Visual”) to directly over DC and MD. Engines may have become quieter over the years, but the decibel levels experienced by residents have increased as a result of the route changes. Most of the residents in the affected communities have lived there long before 2014, so – unlike many of these cases – it’s not fair to argue that they are complaining about a situation that they voluntarily moved into. Relaxing the perimeter rule will result in more noise pollution due to departing airliners carrying heavier fuel loads and staying lower on the departure route. Communities in DC have no congressional representative that can even cast a vote against the bill.
@ Terre Cinco — Use Metro or uber/lyft. There is enough parking.
As someone who lived with direct views of the Potomac River for years and years while the flight path for many of my DCA commute flights was along the Potomac, the noise from DCA flights wasn’t bad. I could hear them sometimes when the windows were open or outside on street-level, but it wasn’t bad and came with living in the area. Buyer/renter beware. And that includes not trusting conditions to remain the same just because — especially when dealing with a place where money and power talk very loudly and louder than planes.
As an actual DC resident, I think there should be no perimeter rule out of DCA. The original purpose was to protect IAD. IAD no longer needs protection. DCA should have mainline service to major metros, not just NE megalopolis flights every hour on the hour, plus AA flights to every rando small town east of the Mississippi.
Want to go to Timbuktu Pennsylvania? Dive out to Dulles. DCA should serve the residents and visitors of the capital, not act as an artificially protected AA regional hub.
Imagine the ASM increases if everyone was operating A320s, 737s, and 757s out of there.
I’m thinking that maybe it is time to auction off slots for a 10-year run. Reduce my plane tax and, maybe, sell naming rights.