In the days following the US Senate’s approval of the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) reauthorization deal, four senators are speaking out about future safety risks at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA). The deal, which reached an agreement between Senate and House negotiations earlier this week, looks to add five long-distance flights to the airport.
The legislators also argue that more flights will create more delays to the already congested airport. It comes after a near-miss incident involving a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 8 and a JetBlue Airways Embraer E190 occurred at DCA last month.
Democratic Senators for Maryland, Chris Van Hollen and Ben Cardin, and Democratic Senators for Virginia, Mark R. Warner and Tim Kaine, sounded the alarm about their safety concerns on April 29th.
“Just last week, two planes came within 300 feet of colliding on DCA’s runway – a frightening and visible demonstration that DCA is at capacity. Thankfully, there was no loss of life – this time. But this new analysis from the FAA demonstrates conclusively once and for all that passengers simply cannot afford for Congress to further meddle in airport operations by jamming more flights onto DCA’s already-overburdened runway.”
Photo: Kit Leong | Shutterstock
The FAA’s analysis reportedly found that the airport is operating at near-peak capacity, and during normal hours, its slots are fully allocated to existing commercial flights. Regardless of whether more flights will be added during non-peak hours, additional delays are expected to occur into the next hour and cascade throughout the day, according to Van Hollen.
Both airports have increased passenger counts by more than 16 million since the pandemic.
DCA also handles all commercial flights primarily from one runway. 20% of departures experience delays already, while 22% of arrivals are affected. The average passenger delay at the airport is reportedly 67 minutes. The FAA noted that five additional roundtrip flights would increase daily delays by 725 minutes, resulting in a total of 12,734 minutes of delays overall per day at the airport.
Nearly 820 commercial flights takeoff and land at DCA every day. The airport was originally developed to handle only 15 million passengers per year. However, in 2023, 25.5 million travelers were recorded passing through the airport. The year prior, DCA had the third-worst cancelation rate among the busiest airports in the US.
“Our colleagues should listen to the FAA and the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority and heed the warning light of last week’s near collision,” the Senators explained. “There is no reason to compromise the safety and timeliness of 25 million passengers for the benefit of a few members of Congress who want more flights into DCA.”
The latest near-miss incident follows a slew of near collisions involving commercial aircraft. Last year, the US Department of Transportation recorded over 17,000 runway incursions nationwide. More than half of the incidents resulted from pilot deviations, while 20% were caused by air traffic controller (ATC) action or inaction.
Photo: Paparacy | Shutterstock
FAA administrator Mike Whitaker said the agency is “committed to doing everything possible” to improve runway safety. One initiative is developing new airfield surveillance systems to improve ATC situational awareness. The new technology is expected to be installed at a handful of airports this later year.
The new technology is set to be implemented in a few months.
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