dca does not have the infastructure to support MANY more flights beyond the perimater. i read once that the entire airport is on a plot smaller than the jfk terminals. for the past 5 years, dca has had a pasenger count of 18MM and 275K flights. a 20% jump in both is going to create a mess on everything from parking to restrooms, and there is no place for expansion. the backups on the runways will run an hour or so. a good steady strong wind from the wnw and the backups will be for a couple hours.

by the way, in spite of all the haggling, there has been agreement to adding some 40 or so flights to the west coast. i do not think more slots will be added, just the big planes to get congress home.

as to congressional influence, my MD congressperson lives 4 miles north of my house. the next guy down lives 5 miles south. we cannot get them to push to the arrivals into the center of the potomac on the "potomac visual" where they belong. they turn on the auto pilot machine, and fly over the patasco and oxon hill electronic markers, which are on the maryland shore.

if you want congressional influence,
a. be a congress person or spouse,
b. give at least $10k, or bundle 100K. they will listen then.

Both Amtrak and USPS are government-owned corporations. They are responsible themselves for making money. If they don't, no-one other than their own management is to blame.

Of course they are. That's the point.

Listen. I did not say that every rail project in the world ever would actually make its owner money. I said it could be done if it was handled correctly. This entails doing it efficiently (this part often fails; I've seen a bus lane built, destroyed, built again and then not used for the original purpose) and making it better than the alternatives available for a similar trip.

But even then, it's perfectly fine if some money is lost on the project because what it does is get people out of their polluting, heavy-traffic-generating cars and in some cases, planes. Maybe this is news to you, but money is lost on most if not all government projects. Why? Because they aren't necessarily meant to generate revenue for that government. They're there to provide a service to the public.

Either way, the Nederlandse Spoorwegen (Dutch Railways) are in the business of making money. Lots of it. Because it gets it right, most of the time. (There's an exception in an international thing where they can't seem to figure out that the price premium they're asking makes it too expensive and thus no one will use it.)

Demography in the Netherlands is very much different from the US. In the US distances are longer and people live more spread out, making it more difficult to make a good train system work.

But that doesn't mean that there isn't any route where good train system would work. Of course, no one is suggesting that people would travel Miami - Seattle by train.

One should not forget the bogus argument that doing away with the perimeter rule will increase noise in the area. I worked within walking distance of DCA many years. I could see planes land and take off from my window, but not once did I hear noise from an aeroplane day or night. Many nights I worked late until after midnight and even during the silence of the night did I hear any noise.
When I first read that argument, I believed it as I lived far from DCA, although I worked right across the river.
The argument used to be that DCA is operating because the politicians need an airport close to where they live and work. If it wasn't for them, DCA would die.

It's a shame that for many years We suffered IAD. I hated the bus lounge to the extent that I flew from BWI instead, when BA, KLM, TWA all had TATL flights from BWI.

Night curfew: What's the point?
 

I meant to start another thread but posted it here inadvertently. When I didn't see the thread in travelbuzz, I submitted it again. This was what the following post is.

Night curfew: What's the point?
 

I borrowed the title from the thread on the perimeter rule. Thanks sesasheep.

Many airports have night curfew while many are more alive at night during the day. The constraint of night curfew has got to make operations inefficient. By doing away with night curfew spread the flights can be spread over time, reducing congestion in skies around busy airports and allow airlines to rationalise departure and arrival times, especially for international flights. It makes little sense when an airport along with its gates sits idle, for 7 hours (for as long as 8 hours for departures) while there is a shortage of slots during peak times.

Flights from the U.S. to SEA arrive around midnight and depart very early in morning, both times are inconvenient for international flights while aircraft sit idle for 6 or more hours. Majority of long haul international flights from India depart between midnight and 4-5 a.m. Do the planes make less noise in SIN, BKK and DEL? Or do they have a super secret technology that keeps the noise away from the ground?