Tag Archives for washington national.
Capital One Landing DCA is the first fine dining airport restaurant that’s free with the right credit card. The food is spectacular, and you can even make reservations.
The Department of Transportation has made its determination about the five new “beyond perimeter” routes that would be permitted to operated at Washington’s National airport. These are flights provided for in the FAA Reauthorization Act which are farther the airport’s current cap for most flights of 1,250 miles. The decision was made months after the agency was statutorily required to announce it.
In the legislative fight over five-year reauthorization for the FAA, airlines and other interests had a Christmas tree of of wish lists items they worked hard to get. It’s a $105 billion bill that more than doubles subsidies for small community air service, and makes it harder to track private planes belonging to wealthy individuals. Among many other things, in a victory for Delta over United (which operates a competing hub at Washington Dulles airport) it included 5 new “beyond-perimeter” slot pairs at Washington National airport, that permit flights farther than 1,250 miles. The authors of the bill didn’t just say there could be more flying, and to destinations currently reserved for Dulles airport, they outlined who should get those flights. They had to go to existing big airlines, and couldn’t be given to new…
Trump campaign 737 mistakenly entered restricted airspace over the White House, banking right towards the Washington Monument after takeoff from National airport.
Bank of America across from Amazon’s “HQ2” in Arlington, Virginia was robbed on Monday morning. The getaway plan was unique.
Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Chair of Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation – the committee that oversees DOT and that drafted the FAA Reauthorization Act language which created these slots – didn’t just write the law that created new slots at Washington’s National airport.
She didn’t just draft language that virtually assigns those slots to specific airlines. In case her point wasn’t clear enough, she’s written to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, in the regulatory docket, explaining who she believes should get the new slots that permit flights greater than 1,250 miles from National airport.
After a crazy lobbying process, Delta Air Lines achieved a partial success is getting the federal government to approve new ‘beyond perimeter’ slots at Washington’s National Airport.
Now there’s jockeying over which airlines will get the slots, and Delta is pushing to keep one out of the hands of American Airlines.
Washington’s National Airport is finally about to get an American Express Centurion lounge, based on photos showing construction largely complete and furnishing laid out in the space.
The best proposals here are for new routes – from Alaska (San Diego), American (San Antonio), and Spirit (San Jose). Breeze says if they were eligible they’d fly somewhere like Boise, Reno, or Albuquerque which are at least places that lack service today. But because Congress got involved micro-managing this based on lobbying on the one hand, and their own political interest on the other, it’s not clear who the FAA can even legally consider for the slots.
Frontier AIrlines flies to National airport 3 times daily, but under the law for purposes of new flights they are not currently an incumbent carrier. Spirit Airlines doesn’t fly there, but they are considered to. And DOT says that Alaska is a “limited incumbent” but failed to consider their codesharing with American Airlines – while listing Air Canada as eligible to operate routes to U.S. domestic destinations. Oops!
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
