WASHINGTON — Rep. Blake Moore, R-Utah, is pushing for changes to federal law to allow more nonstop flights between Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport and Salt Lake City. These flights, he said, would increase tourism between Utah and the nation’s capital.
They would also give Moore a more efficient ride.
When returning home from Capitol Hill, Moore often waits for the only direct afternoon or evening flight from one of three Washington-area airports that can get him back to Salt Lake City in time to tuck in his children: a Delta Air Lines departure from Reagan National, also known as DCA, after 5 p.m. which lands around 8 p.m. An earlier departure would allow him to fulfill his duties as a legislator but also as a father, Moore said, leaving him to help his wife out to dinner or attend Little League Practice.
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“We need more direct flights from DCA,” he said.
In recent weeks, dozens of lawmakers have joined the push for 28 new round-trip flights a day to Reagan National. Supporting their case with opinion essays, tweets and bills, they argue that these additional routes – which would require tweaking a decades-old law that prevents most flights from traveling more than 1,250 miles to or since Reagan National – would meet pent-up demand, cut airfares and create new jobs.
Their push, fueled by a multimillion-dollar lobbying campaign sponsored by Delta, aims to enact changes under legislation that would reauthorize the Federal Aviation Administration for another five years.
The effort to loosen the so-called perimeter rule is caught up in battles for market share between airlines, local politics in the Washington area, and friction over the FAA’s chronic and compounding problems with air traffic and safety management.
But unlike many special-interest battles in Washington, this one has personal ramifications for lawmakers — or at least those who return home each week to points west not easily accessible from Reagan. National, located just across the Potomac River from downtown Washington. and a quick tour of Capitol Hill. (Another Washington-area airport, Washington Dulles International Airport, is about 25 miles west.)
“I would absolutely support” additional direct flights from Reagan National to points outside the current 1,250-mile perimeter, said Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., Adding that he would need to see more details before supporting a particular bill. .
The tester described his ride – which involves a 90-minute pre-dawn drive from his farm near Big Sandy, Montana, to Great Falls International Airport and a layover in Minneapolis, Salt Lake City or Denver – as ” a pain”.
Rep. Burgess Owens, R-Utah and one of the lawmakers seeking to allow more long-distance flights from Reagan National, said he recently missed one from Salt Lake City to Washington and had to wait for one day and a half for another.
In the end, he had to fly to Thurgood Marshall International Airport in Baltimore/Washington, about 25 miles northeast of Capitol Hill, and take an hour-long Uber ride to his office. “Unfortunately, many Utahns and western Americans do not have access to their representatives, to our nation’s historic sites and to federal agencies,” he said at an event outside the Capitol. promoting legislation allowing additional flights.
It’s unclear whether public policy will be swayed in this case by whether members of Congress should be able to avoid inconvenient connecting flights or have more options at a nearby airport. And other issues are at stake.
Lawmakers in Maryland and Virginia, the states that would be hardest hit by increased flights to and from Reagan National, argued that the airport in Arlington, Virginia – a place that a traveler energetic could reach on foot from the Lincoln Memorial – is already strained by traffic, limited parking and stressed baggage systems.
“Right now, DCA already has the busiest runway in the country,” Rep. Abigail Spanberger, D-Va., who opposes the proposed perimeter exceptions, said in a statement. “I am also concerned following a recent FAA analysis which found that more long-haul flights at DCA would unbalance the operational performance of the airport.”
United Airlines and American Airlines, Delta’s main competitors, also oppose relaxing the perimeter rule. These carriers argue that additional long-distance flights at Reagan National would cause passenger delays and may even prevent FAA re-clearance. And if the scope changes were passed, another industry battle over which new routes might finally be offered would likely follow.
In an internal memo in May, the FAA wrote that adding long-distance flights to Reagan National’s schedule without removing existing ones would strain the system. Reagan National already ranks 10th among U.S. late airports, the memo says.
But proponents of change see their own cumbersome commutes as evidence of a system in need of improvement.
In April, Delta created a nonprofit called Capital Access Alliance to advocate for adding new exceptions to the perimeter rule, which dates back to 1966 and has been updated occasionally over the years.
Joined by small businesses; West Coast companies like Columbia Sportswear and Adidas; and trade associations in states like Utah, Texas and Washington, the alliance said the perimeter rule had lost its usefulness as a bulwark against airport congestion and competition that could have harmed Dulles – which opened in 1962 – in its early years.
The group also said congestion issues reported by the FAA are not a factor at certain times of the day, creating an opening for new flights.
Delta also hopes to operate lucrative new long-haul flights to and from Reagan National, where its current market share is 14%, according to Boston Consulting Group analysis commissioned by the airline. Delta officials say they hope to establish or increase service to cities such as Austin, Texas; Salt Lake City; and Seattle.
Delta hired influential lobbyist Jeff Miller, who is known to have the ear of Chairman Kevin McCarthy, to help his case.
Jamie Baker, airline analyst at JPMorgan Chase & Co., said while it was too early to predict the financial implications of exceptions to the perimeter rule for large airlines like Delta, the changes could lead to a reduction in the service to small towns from Reagan National.
Proponents of the perimeter rule have pointed to this possibility.
“Cities and states that rely on convenient, on-time access to Washington as a destination or connection risk losing access,” a nonprofit called the Coalition to Protect America’s Regional Airports says on its website. The group is backed by United and dozens of smaller airports and commercial groups, many of which are within the current 1,250-mile perimeter.
But the long journeys lawmakers may face en route to Washington appear to have inspired some to call for new exceptions to existing limits.
In May, Rep. Hank Johnson, a Democrat from Delta’s home state of Georgia, and Owens introduced legislation that would allow 28 new daily return flights to Reagan National. Senses Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., and Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., introduced a similar bill in the Senate in June.
“DCA’s operations remain as they were structured in the 1960s to protect the growth capacity of Dulles International Airport,” Johnson said. “Those ideals have lost their usefulness at this point.”
Among those seeking to relax the perimeter rule is Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, who wants to see direct flights between Reagan National and San Antonio, parts of which are in his congressional district.
Roy can fly direct from Austin to Reagan National, he said, but sometimes that flight doesn’t arrive early enough for him to attend house rules committee meetings, forcing him to use Dulles or Baltimore/Washington instead.
“It’s a little clunky,” Roy said.
Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, attempted to relax Reagan National’s perimeter restrictions in the late 1990s and get rid of the rule entirely in the late 2000s. Although McCain was not able to eliminate the rule, he managed to get new exceptions to create flights from Reagan National to Phoenix in the process. He continued to take connecting flights home, however, to avoid accusations of personal dealings.
The impact of the push by McCain, who died in 2018, was such that Rep. Debbie Lesko, R-Arizona, who is from the Phoenix area, refuses to support efforts by some of her House colleagues to ease the perimeter rule. , fearing it could turn against Arizona.
“We already have several direct flights to Phoenix,” Lesko, who flies direct to Reagan National, said with a laugh, “and so opening it up to, say, Utah or other things, can reduce the number of flights direct to Phoenix. So to my constituents, I don’t think I would sign this bill.
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