Flights from Washington’s National airport are limited to 1,250 miles unless they are one of a handful of exception flights provided for in legislation and handed out by the Department of Transportation. A beyond perimeter flight is valuable. Southwest Airlines, for instance, has the only legally-permitted flight between National airport and Austin. No other airline is allowed to compete on that route. Other options either involve connections or going to Dulles.

United Airlines has a hub at Washington Dulles. They don’t want to allow more flights that would compete out of Washington’s National airport. They especially don’t want more flights from National over 1,250 miles – where Dulles airport, which they dominate, has a near-monopoly. So they lobby hard to prevent more and better service from National (also known as Reagan National).

Meanwhile, American Airlines dominates at National airport, so they’re wary of expansion that would allow other airlines to gain an increased foothold.

American Airlines is the largest carrier at National with approximately 57% of 5-day or more slots as of 2022, compared to about 12% for Delta and 9% each for United and Southwest. (Delta used to hold more slots but traded those plus cash to US Airways for LaGuardia slots.)

Airline		Weekday Slot Pairs		% Of Slots
Air Canada		16		2%
Alaska		18		2%
American		503		57%
Delta		106		12%
Frontier		6		1%
JetBlue		60		7%
Republic		8		1%
Southwest		82		9%
United		82		9%

Passengers are stuck in the middle of intense lobbying.

• Ex-politicians get paid to lobby and to be the face of each airline’s concerns. Current politicians play their interests, too. For instance local leaders worry about United pulling out of Dulles (the hub has seemed on the chopping block for over 20 years) or scaling back there. It’s why they’ve shifted hundreds of millions of dollars from National airport to Dulles to keep United’s costs lowers. They’ve even been conspiring with United to impose fines on airlines that use new slots if those are granted by Congress.

• Local activists are afraid of noise (a handful of people, most of whom moved nearby long after the airport was up and running) even though modern planes are far quieter than those that flew when capacity restrictions were put in place. And there are environmental activists who just don’t like air travel, even when the net flying doesn’t change just where it happens to and from.

Delta Air Lines launched a lobbying effort to get new beyond-perimeter slots (flights over 1,250 miles) last spring included by Congress in its FAA budget reauthorization.

Here’s Delta’s latest ad, put out by their front group Capital Access Alliance:

After tremendous pushback they’ve scaled back their ask a lot (which muted American’s opposition), but the effort continues.

• These are net new slots, so it doesn’t mean fewer flights to existing cities

• The airport is underutilized for parts of the day (7am – 8:30am; 11am – 1:30pm; 9pm and later). Additional slots should be offered during these times.

• The airport has among the best on-time performance in the country, outperforming even Detroit, which shows it isn’t overscheduled.

• When slots were parceled out there was an allowance for private jet movements, which no longer happen to any meaningful degree due to restrictions put in place after 9/11. The airport was intended decades ago to have more flights than it does today.

Washington National Airport, National Hall

Delta was successful in messaging against the American Airlines-JetBlue partnership. They managed to snare the most slots at Tokyo Haneda airport. They even got billions in pandemic subsidies not to lay off employees that they weren’t furloughing anyway. They’re an effective lobbying machine.

However they didn’t manage to get the government to give them one of those Haneda slots to do with it whatever it pleased instead of operating out of Portland as it promised. They didn’t convince the Obama or Trump administrations to limit flights to the U.S. by Qatar, Emirates and Etihad (which would have violated treaty obligations). They managed to delay but not end Import-Export Bank subsidies for foreign airlines to purchase Boeing aircraft. So you can’t just bet on Delta getting what it wants from the government.

Washington National Airport Historic Terminal

Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Commerce Committee Chair Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) have compromised on legislation that would allow 4 new beyond perimeter slots. Notably, both represent states with limited air service to the airport because of the perimeter rule (Dallas and Houston are within the perimeter, San Antonio and Austin are not). Senator Cantwell’s home state also has a Delta hub, meanwhile Cruz – himself a MileagePlus elite – has crossed swords politically with United over vaccine mandates and other left-leaning politics.

In this case more service out of National airport, especially to destinations that cannot currently legally have service, would benefit consumers from both a convenience and price perspective. So while Delta’s campaign serves its own interest (it always does) it happens to coincide with consumer interests.