Major airlines would love to have more long haul out of DCA. John McCain was the one that got long haul flights added. Part of the problem is that very desirable property is along the Potomac River and the influencial folks that live there do not want more flights (I do however, the airport was there first - I will take the noise for the convenience.)

That said - only non-major airlines got the routes ("for competition").

Six RT flights initially added now a few more. John McCain got three round trips for America West - now USAir. Two to Phoenix, One to Las Vegas. TWA got the DCA-LAX, but when AA bought TWA, the gov't took it away from AA and gave the route to AS for DCA-SEA. Later the DCA-LAX was added and also given to AS (Alaska). Frontier has the DCA-DEN, and DL got the DCA-SLC. UA and AA did not get any (they both wanted DCA-LAX) - and CO did not request any.