Delays and cancellations consumed 41% of arrivals at Ronald Reagan Washington Nationwide Airport final month as VIP helicopter flights triggered new security procedures enacted after January’s lethal crash.
The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority this week stated 34% of February arrivals have been delayed, up from 11% in February 2024. A further 7% of flights have been canceled, up from half a p.c final yr.
The Federal Aviation Administration suspended nonessential helicopter flights and enacted stricter separation guidelines after the Jan. 29 collision between an American Airways jet and Military Black Hawk helicopter killed 67 individuals.
Performing on preliminary suggestions from the Nationwide Transportation Security Board, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy introduced this month that he was making the adjustments everlasting.
Talking Wednesday to his MWAA board, CEO Jack Potter thanked Mr. Duffy and the FAA for solidifying the adjustments. However he acknowledged the brand new guidelines have been inflicting “frequent floor stops and floor delay applications when helicopter site visitors for VIP actions or different security-related actions happen near the airport, leading to vital flight delays that are negatively affecting the client expertise.”
He added, in response to a transcript shared with The Washington Instances, “We apologize for these unavoidable circumstances and respect everybody’s persistence and understanding. Security is firstly, and we’ll proceed working with our federal companions and the trade to enhance operational reliability at Reagan Nationwide.”
The NTSB investigation into January’s crash is ongoing. The NTSB, FAA, White Home and Transportation Division didn’t reply Friday to emails looking for remark.
A number of trade insiders interviewed by The Instances have been break up on whom guilty for the rise in flight interruptions.
Robert W. Mann, a former American Airways govt, blamed the Trump administration for letting nonessential officers take “so-called VIP helicopter journeys” on Marine One for his or her comfort.
“Somebody ought to be asking for these manifests,” Mr. Mann stated, noting that they would come with photographs of any passengers boarding Marine One with out the president or vice chairman accompanying them.
He stated the 59% of planes that arrived on time at Reagan Nationwide final month fell effectively beneath the trade’s regular fee of 75% to 80%.
“DCA has change into unusable as an origin, vacation spot or connecting airport,” added Mr. Mann, an impartial airline marketing consultant based mostly in Port Washington, New York. “The current situation is classifying any Marine One helicopter operation — for anybody, not even authorities staff — as VIP, which shuts down DCA.”
The current security adjustments at DCA didn’t have an effect on Marine One or the longstanding safety rule that each one business flights are suspended whereas the presidential helicopter is flying within the neighborhood.
Mary Schiavo, a former inspector common for the Transportation Division beneath former Presidents George H.W. Bush and Invoice Clinton, stated the larger downside is that the federal authorities forces too many passengers to attach via a small variety of hub airports like DCA.
Though Washington Nationwide Airport was supposed to shut after Dulles Worldwide Airport opened in 1962, she identified that Congress has continuously voted to develop air site visitors on the busy spot not removed from the White Home, making it some of the crowded airspaces within the nation.
“That is 100% Congress’ fault for concentrating site visitors at DCA, which was by no means supposed to be a hub, and it’s strictly a comfort for Washington authorities varieties and the airways,” stated Ms. Schiavo, whose former job gave her oversight over the FAA. “Marine One is a extremely small a part of the site visitors.”
An NTSB evaluate of 944,179 business arrivals and departures at DCA from October 2021 to December 2024 discovered 15,214 near-collisions between business planes and navy choppers with lower than 400 ft of vertical separation.
In its preliminary report this month, NTSB investigators stated the Jan. 29 crash seemingly occurred almost 300 ft from the bottom because the business airliner descended and the Military helicopter strayed effectively above its 200-foot restrict whereas conducting a nighttime take a look at flight.
“Of the 15,000 near-misses, that’s not Marine One,” Ms. Schiavo added. “The congestion was attributable to 1000’s of flights for different functions.”
In accordance with the WMAA, flight interruptions have improved in current weeks. On the similar time, the CEO reported Wednesday that 26.2 million individuals traveled via Reagan Nationwide in 2024, up steadily from a 2020 low level of seven.5 million throughout pandemic journey restrictions and above the 23.9 million who flew in 2019.
In an e-mail Friday, the airline trade recommended that elevated security considerations after January’s crash justified the rise in flight interruptions at Reagan final month.
“The security of passengers and crew is and at all times might be our prime precedence, and we’ll proceed to comply with the steerage of the FAA and NTSB in our shared objective to maintain aviation the most secure mode of transportation on the planet,” stated Airways for America, a commerce group representing main U.S. air carriers.
Steve Polzin, an Arizona State College professor researching mass transportation, urged persistence whereas airport officers stability the brand new security tips with the necessity to enhance flight occasions.
“It’s too quickly to get a full measure of the results of the adjustments,” Mr. Polzin stated. “Extra time will permit some refinements within the operational responses and provide an opportunity to filter out the impacts from climate and different adjustments from these that may be attributed to the operational adjustments.”
