The Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation moved forward with plans to add five long-distance flight slots to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport despite pushback from local lawmakers in Virginia and Maryland.
The proposed expansion to flight slots exempt from the 1,250-mile perimeter rule for the airport in Arlington, Virginia, came as part of the committee’s Federal Aviation Administration’s reauthorization bill. The move to add more flights to DCA comes less than a year after a bid to expand the airport’s perimeter rule failed in the House of Representatives.
“This bipartisan bill delivers improvements to aviation safety and consumer protections that Americans have been demanding,” Committee Chairwoman Maria Cantwell (D-WA) said in a statement on Thursday.
The Capital Access Alliance, a group pushing for an expansion to flights departing Reagan National Airport, applauded the bill in a statement on Thursday.
“We thank Chairwoman Cantwell, Ranking Member (Ted) Cruz (R-TX) and the members of the committee who stood with consumers today and voted to make air travel to our nation’s capital more affordable,” CAA spokesperson Brian Walsh said in a statement. “Consumers are paying some of the highest ticket prices in the nation because the federal perimeter rule has stifled competition in the national capital region for nearly six decades. These new flights will give travelers more choices when they fly and help lower costly airfare.”
Opponents of the bid to expand DCA’s flight slots argue the airport is already at capacity and that expansion would cause more delays. Officials also worry it would hurt the other two airports in the region — Washington Dulles International Airport, located 26 miles west of downtown Washington, and Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, located 32 miles northeast of D.C.
Sens. Mark Warner (D-VA), Tim Kaine (D-VA), Ben Cardin (D-MD), and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) expressed their opposition to the provision in a joint statement on Thursday, arguing it would “overburden” Reagan National Airport.
“We are deeply disappointed by the Senate Commerce Committee’s move to overburden DCA,” they wrote in the statement. “With this profoundly reckless decision, the Committee is gambling with the safety of everyone who uses this airport. As we have said countless times before, DCA’s runway is already the busiest in the country.
“Forcing the airport to cram additional flights in its already crowded schedule will further strain its resources at a time when air traffic controllers are overburdened and exhausted, working 10-hour days, six days a week,” the statement continued.
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Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA), whose district includes DCA, denounced the plan and said the House of Representatives will reject the expansion as it did last year.
“The House rejected this on a robust, bipartisan vote and no amount of backroom Senate deals will change the fact that the House strongly opposes adding more traffic and delays at DCA,” Beyer said in a post on X.
