Congress added more flights to the airport last year.
American Airlines aircraft at Reagan National (Photo: Shutterstock | Thomas Barrat)
Washington’s Reagan National Airport is slated for its busiest year in 2025, despite calls last year not to add flights. As part of the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2024, Congress authorized five more round-trip slot exemptions.
These flights will go beyond the airport’s 1,250-mile perimeter rule and were awarded by the Department of Transportation in late 2024. American, Delta, Southwest, United, and Alaska will each add one new daily service.
These beyond-perimeter routes will begin in the coming months. Some are currently set to start as early as next month, including Southwest’s new route to Las Vegas that begins on Feb. 13.
Congress is tasked with approving new service from Reagan National, or carriers return unused slots and the DOT awards them. The airport’s perimeter rule was first established in 1966 and expanded in the 1980s.
Even though it operates Reagan National, the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority has little to no say on how Congress approves these new flights. Over the past 25 years, Congress has added 64 slot exemptions to the airport, per MWAA.
The airports authority has warned against adding more flights for years. As recently as last year, it said more flights would create “congestion, delays and stress on airport infrastructure.”
Most arrivals and departures use Reagan National’s main runway – 1/19 – making it the busiest runway in the U.S. with over 800 daily takeoffs and landings, MWAA said.
In a May 2023 memo, the Federal Aviation Administration’s Air Traffic Organization said an increase in flights would lead to more delays from the airport.
“In other words, as long as the total number of flights at DCA remains the same, FAA Air Traffic Organization takes no position on whether flights are within or beyond-perimeter,” the report stated.
Despite these calls, 2025 is shaping up to become the airport’s busiest year on record. Cirium Diio schedule data compiled by AirlineGeeks shows that airlines are planning over 302,000 total scheduled inbound and outbound flights for the year.
Scheduled inbound and outbound flights at Reagan National (Data; Cirium Diio)
This equates to nearly 900 peak-day flights during the busier summer months. Reagan National continues to see record years in terms of passenger volumes, too.
“DCA handles more passengers today – 25 million a year – than at any time in its history and more than Washington’s other two much-larger and better-equipped airports,” MWAA said on its website, referring to Dulles and Baltimore. “DCA was designed to handle 15 million passengers a year and is now at its limit for most of the day.”
Just last week, executives at American touted plans to beef up the carrier’s schedule from Reagan National. The airline is the largest at the airport with over 520 peak-daily flights.
“We’re going to be back to our largest schedules, largest number of seats offered in both LaGuardia and DCA since the pandemic,” American CEO Robert Isom said during the airline’s fourth-quarter earnings call.
American gained dominance at Reagan National after its 2013 merger with US Airways, which previously considered the airport a focus city. Now, American calls it a hub, with flights to nearly 100 destinations, including beyond-perimeter service to Phoenix, Los Angeles, and San Antonio starting in March.
Two days ago, an American Eagle CRJ-700 and a Black Hawk helicopter collided over the Pomotac River, killing 67. The accident is the deadliest crash involving a U.S. airline in over two decades.
A New York Times report on Thursday said staffing levels in Reagan National’s air traffic control tower were “not normal” at the time of the accident. A controller had been managing both helicopter and airplane traffic, positions that are usually split between two people.
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