It sure seemed to. :) Anyway, in addition to controlling congestion and pushing traffic to the new Dulles Airport, the rule was also instituted to reduce aircraft noise from larger planes for the surrounding community.

Disagree. The rules at DCA require only 11 of the 67 slots to be used specifically for flights of 76 or fewer seat (or 56 and less depending on type of plane) flights. For all of the other slots, except for the GA slots, while they are used predominantly by small planes, there is no requirement for this and could, in fact, be used for ANY size plane. You can bet that the airlines would love to use bigger planes to shuttle more and more pax into these slots.

No, it actually does push pax to IAD and higher pax count reduces enplanement costs/pax. If Congress would allow DCA to subsidize IAD then it wouldn't matter so much.

While it may be true that some airlines use the current slot system rules to their advantage, and that a particular airline makes IAD its hub, this is coincidental to who the actual companies are and not why the rule is there or is retained. If UA left, I believe another will take its place pretty quick. (But then again, I don't run these boondoggles called airlines).

Um...what "67 slots"? Can you please provide a reference for this as I have never heard of it before and would like to learn more.

Probably a moot point anyway as even if airlines could convert commuter into mainline slots, they don't have the gates to support it. Mainline gates are already at or near capacity. There was a thread over on the AA forum a few months back about long delays waiting for gates to open after landing. Any type of ops delay (weather, mechanical) seems to create a cascading delay as there is simply no place to go if the previously assigned gate is still occupied. I've experienced it several times myself and it's not fun.

Actually, MWAA already uses revenue from DCA to subsidize IAD: http://www.businesswire.com/news/hom...-Realigns-Cost
The agreement will also modify the revenue sharing arrangements from surplus cashflow between the authority and the signatory airlines as well as introduce a new formula to subsidize IAD's debt costs that are passed on to carriers using a portion of the surplus revenues derived at DCA.

The totals are not explicitly set out in the law, rather they are determined by the parameters set out in several sections of PUBLIC LAW 112–95—FEB. 14, 2012 and the CFR [14 C.F.R. § 93.123, 49 U.S.C. § 41718(c)(2)(A)(ii), 49 U.S.C. § 41714(d)(1)] as well as FAA implementing policies that sets out the number of operations authorized per hour per size of aircraft.

But after the 2012 changes, it works out like this:
TYPE of Op Max slots (T.O/landing) allowed per hour
Air carrier 37
Commuter ops 11
GA and unscheduled 12
Exemptions 5
Slides 2

Except for a few peak hours DCA does not come close to using all 67 ops per hour so there is room. In addition, for a variety of reasons most of the hourly GA slots are not used.

Agreed, gates are pretty busy, but I do not believe they are at capacity. I will check with people I know there. The new terminal due to open in several years will further alleviate this.

That is true, but it is only a portion of surplus revenue from DCA that can go and I believe is capped at $40 million. Significant to be sure, but not game changing. I did misstate something though - such revenue sharing also has to be approved by the airlines that use the airports, not only Congress.

I've grown slightly more fond of IAD in recent years. Fortunately, I am not a United flyer, so all of my trips into/out of IAD have been on American or Delta.

Terminal B is a pleasant experience. Large, open, airy, and connected to the main terminal via train.

My three gripes on IAD still are: 1) the lack of Admirals club at IAD (which will likely never change), 2) the rat like maze that you have to endure when walking from the garages to the terminals and inside the main terminals, and 3) the lengthy wait times for baggage at the main terminal for checked baggage.

I think that IADs fortunes will turn around once Metro to Dulles is up and running. While IAD is WAY out in the 'burbs when you are coming from downtown DC, I am aware that plenty of other distanced airports (LGW, NRT, etc.), still pull in loads of traffic. For users who are 1) on a budget, 2) transit conscious, or 3) hip, Metro will serve a needed purpose.

I fly each of the big 3, but I don't miss an Admiral or Sky Club at IAD because the BA lounge in B is there and very nice. I don't drive my own car so don't know about long term parking. But for me, flying in International I've never had to wait for bags. They are always there as soon as I arrive. My last time in on AF I was first off the plane and driven right to the immigration hall and through in a few minutes and my bags came out about the same time. It could not have been easier.

Here's some news for this thread. DL is launching a non-stop DCA-LAX with lie flat biz seats!

DL 2036 Los Angeles (LAX) at 8:30 a.m. Washington (DCA) at 4:55 p.m.

DL 1913 Washington (DCA) at 5:45 p.m. Los Angeles (LAX) at 8:30 p.m.

http://news.delta.com/delta-adds-ser...hington-reagan

Interesting...they're reallocating one of the beyond-perimeter SLC slots to LAX. Also starting 1 new IAD-SLC round trip.

It will be interesting to see if/how AA responds to the lie-flat seats.

So now we're up to 4 DCA-LAX per day with some pretty good capacity (3 738's and 1 752). ^

To anticipate the next topic..."I want [insert airline here] to fly to [insert destination beyond 1,250 miles from DCA here]"

In the byzantine set of congressional/DOT regulations associated with the Perimeter Rule (which restricts flights to/from DCA to 1,250 miles) there are 4 "wild card" slots that were awarded to the 4 major carriers in 2012:

US: SAN (changed to LAX after the AA merger)
AA: LAX
UA: SFO
DL: SLC (this is the one being changed to LAX)

These 4 slots can be changed anytime to any place. All other flights (including those already operating beyond perimeter) require government approval to change.

DL already had a SLC slot from prior congressional/DOT allocations. To start DCA-LAX they gave up one of the 2 SLC slots reluctantly and moved the service to IAD.

I'm hoping that AA upgrades one of the AA flights to a 752 with the new config. I believe there is enough high value $$$ to support paid F for that route.

What kind of a discount do the Congress-critters get from airlines? Quid pro quo?

Most of them should already have elite status and hence get upgraded but they will get upgrades "almost" all the time no matter what their status (even ahead of most other elites).

Although fewer and fewer of them accept the UG's even though, as is pointed out, it is hard to be a Member and not have achieved top-earned elite status fairly quickly.

A few of the older ones who have always been upgraded having nothing to do with FFP will continue to accept them, but if you look these days, most sit in Y.

yeah, it would be more correct to say they are almost always "offered" the upgrade.

I thought most flew private. But maybe that is only at Feinstein or Pelosi's level.

Back when the 777 first rolled out, the first route was IAD-LAX and several times I sat in 1A next to Jack Kemp. So I thought they always flew First or private. And I thought they had a discounted price. But maybe things have changed?

It has been almost 10 years since congressional rules and federal law prohibited critters from flying on private aircraft at no charge. Now, they must pay the pro-rata actual cost of the flight or the cost of full of Y (or F, I don't recall off the top of my head) of the available commercial flight. Of course, even if they are paying they still receive the main benefit of the time savings (not to mention the comfort).

They pay for travel on the taxpayer dime (office travel expense account) or using campaign funds - which account pays depends upon the reason for the trip; in either case it is not their own funds. Mostly they get F from status unless they pay for the upgrade using personal funds.

In 2014 there was a proposal to prohibit flying in taxpayer paid F but I don't know if that rule succeeded.