Who will get the 5 new long-distance routes from DCA? Southwest joins the fray

21.05.2024 - 14:49 / thepointsguy.com

The bidding has begun. Several airlines are throwing their hat into the ring, hoping to win the right to operate more long-distance flights from Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA).

That comes after Congress last week signed off on five additional exceptions to a decades-old (but increasingly permeable) rule that says airlines can't fly from DCA to destinations beyond 1,250 miles.

Already, American Airlines announced it hopes to launch new nonstop service from DCA to San Antonio International Airport (SAT) in Texas, an airport that's only about 130 miles beyond the current perimeter restrictions.

Alaska Airlines has revealed it hopes to bolster its DCA footprint with a new transcontinental flight from San Diego International Airport (SAN), where it's been growing at a fast pace of late.

And late Monday, Southwest Airlines said it hopes to launch a new flight to Harry Reid International Airport (LAS) in Las Vegas.

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Whether it's those routes or others that ultimately get approved now lies in the hands of the U.S. Department of Transportation.

What is far more certain is that new flight options are coming to the airport closest to our nation's capital in the not-so-distant future.

Not everyone is happy about it.

Historically, the mantra in the Washington region is that DCA gets the shorter flights, and Dulles International Airport (IAD) gets the longer ones — not just as it relates to Dulles' vast international schedule, but to domestic flights, too.

For decades, the Federal Aviation Administration has closely governed takeoffs and landings at Reagan. Since the mid-1980s, airlines have been restricted from operating DCA-based flights that stretch beyond 1,250 miles in distance — a distance that grew from its original restriction of 650 statute miles.

The rule was designed to be a tool to manage capacity at the space-constrained Reagan, with a goal to send bigger planes and longer flights — and the lion's share of the region's flight growth — to Dulles, which sits on a far larger footprint, 26 miles to the west in Northern Virginia.

Because of that so-called perimeter line, airlines — theoretically — aren't supposed to fly from Reagan beyond the Dakotas, western Nebraska or Kansas, or eastern Texas (notably, Houston and Dallas are inside that "perimeter," though).

Slots and perimeter rules, explained: The little-understood government rule that allows airlines to dominate certain airports

But, since the turn of the century, Congress has authorized one exception after another. They've come in the form of "beyond perimeter exemptions" that have given airlines limited leeway to fly specific routes beyond that