Why? I'm neither tourist nor airport employee, but visit DC on a regular basis for work (bicycle lobby). Why wouldn't a business person take the metro when it connects IAD to downtown DC? Improved predictability, similar or shorter travel time to taxi (and likely much faster when traffic is heavy), no need to rent a car. What am I missing?

looking at the passenger traffic by airline from DCA (pulled from wikipedia).... an AA+US combo would yield over 6 million passengers per year, greater than all other combined (and then some!!!).

Divestiture of slots would be absolutely required. I'm predicting UA gets the most, DL gets some (but not too much cuz its already 70% more than UA), and all the other smaller carriers get a lot more.

i predict a new LAX-DCA p.s. service, and more SFO-DCA service too. heck, they might even start a LHR-DCA service, which their 757s can do. that'd be hot.


Largest Airlines at DCA (December 2011 - November 2012)[33]
Rank Airline Passengers
1 US Airways 3,868,430
2 Delta Air Lines 2,525,842
3 American Airlines 2,280,828
4 United Airlines 1,556,481
5 JetBlue 845,838
6 AirTran Airways 772,785
7 Frontier Airlines 660,111
8 Alaska Airlines 336,124
9 Sun Country Airlines 68,807
10 Southwest Airlines 62,393

And the AA Eagle is disappearing as well. I wouldn't go near AA till we see how badly US screws them up. We had to live thru this mess with UA, just when it's improving is not the time to move to an airline that's about to make the same mistake UA did

Typical Lobbiest. You should ride a bicycle

They allow domination of IAD by UA, why should DCA be treated differently?

Not true. While I'll be long retired by the time Metro reaches IAD, if it were in place, I'd use it frequently. DCA is a wonderful little airport, but I can't get TPAC or TATL from there.

Sure, they will have to give up some slots, but I doubt it will be all of the current AA holdings.

Here are the same figures for IAD

Largest Carriers at Dulles (December 2011 to November 2012)

1. United Airlines 8,939,961
2. ExpressJet (DL Connection, UAEx) 2,144,664
3. Mesa Airlines (UAEx, USEx) 1,080,831
4. Colgan Air (CO Connection, UAEx) 861,507
5. American Airlines 786,170
6. JetBlue Airways 694,483
7. Southwest Airlines 619,105
8. Trans States Airlines (UAEx) 578,521
9. Delta Air Lines 552,263
10. Virgin America 494,117

Why should the new AA have divest anything at DCA?

agreed, best thing UA could do after the AA merger would bring in a DCA-LAX, DCA-SFO or an evening DCA-DEN.

IAD isn't slot controlled so anyone is free to enter the market if they choose. Other airlines choose not to enter the market and are unwilling to compete.

DCA slots are federally regulated so of course it will treated differently. It's unlikely a merger would go through without AA giving up a number of slots to other carriers

Speed and fare are unknowns, and the station will be shuttle or healthy underground walk away (with bags). Metro has shorter hours and longer waits on weekends and every Monday holiday (when govt. is closed but most of the private sector isn't). These three-day weekends are among the busiest travel days.

A close-at-midnight system won't work well for 24x7 IAD employees. For local pax, no overnight parking at the Metro stations. This is all a show, and a costly one. It will look great in the brochures, though.

I think UA will have a hard time getting any, between being #4 at DCA already and being so large at IAD. Any lawyer for the other airlines will argue that any divested slots should go to carriers below the major legacies.

But keep in mind the antitrust issue isn't passengers, it's city-pairs. I haven't looked at the route maps from DCA, but what will drive the analysis is city-pair overlaps.

From what I can tell, AA has a limited number of non-stops from DCA, designed to serve their hubs in JFK, MIA,ORD, DFW, LAX, plus Portland, Nashville, and St. Louis. They may have to give up a few slots on those, but otherwise the overlaps are limited.

1) Metro is increasingly unreliable, so not sure about predictability
2) I don't know if the Metro, with a bunch of stops, will be faster than a taxi, except at rush hour on I-66. Not to mention it depends whether your destination is near metro.
3) No one who is going into DC itself would rent a car--that's just crazy. And if you need to rent a car, it's likely Metro wouldn't get you where you're going.

Metro to DCA is useful if you work downtown. It's 15-20 minutes, and is quicker than a taxi at rush hour. Not to mention it gets you right to the terminal.

The last couple of trips I took the Washington Flyer (from IAD) to the Metro.

It met my needs, although it is not a short ride.

The "plan" is for the Silver line to open the Dulles extension in 2018. It will have little impact on my traveling to Dulles for the reasons that others have articulated.

Now if it went straight to Terminal C, then maybe!

I am sure it will make your life easier if you land during the morning rush. But,

1) To save on construction cost, the IAD metro station is not even going to be near the terminal any more. It will be about half a mile away.

2) The ride from IAD to, say Metro Center will be predictable....but it will be predictably LONG. Estimates are 64-90 minutes, depending on how backed up the Rosslyn tunnel gets. By way of comparison I can get from LHR to Leicester Square in 45-50 minutes on the Piccadilly Line!

3) If your destination in DC is not on the metro, then what? Come up at a station and hail a taxi?

4) DC Metro is NOT 24/7.

5) IAD is not the terminus of the Silver Line. There will be two commuter stations beyond it. Meaning that by the time morning rush hour trains get to the IAD stop, it may be standing room only.

Personally, I plan on continuing to use taxis when I use IAD after the Silver Line opens. Especially when I can expense them on business travel.

I did a few DCA-EWR-XXX. But when you are travelling on an int'l paid business class ticket, the last thing you want to do is start or end your long trip with a ghetto bus ride transfer to and from the ghetto gates at EWR, and have to suffer on a crap ER with no FC DCA-EWR-DCA. The back seat of a taxi from IAD is far preferable to one of those beasts! Plus you don't have to leave at noon or 1pm for a TATL.

Tonight, for example, I am doing 916 out of IAD and will leave for the airport around 3 rather than leaving for the airport at about 12:30 for a connection through EWR on a CR...

The only downside is that I am on UNITED.

I am between DCA and IAD in terms of distance. When given the option, I will ALWAYS fly DCA, even if it means connecting somewhere. IAD is a god-awful airport, embarrassing when you think that it's the point of entry to the nation's capital. It takes forever and a day to reach the gates (feels even longer when you're just coming home from Asia), the security lines are horrible, and oh yes, let's not forget the lack of decent shops and restaurants. Yes, I know DCA is poor in that regard too, but at least I don't need to budget extra 20 minutes just to get to the gate.

Not even the AeroTrain does that.

A lot of foreigners, for better or worse, will end up using the metro because of it's price point. They will use the single train service even though it will take an hour. Many ride the Metro 5A now and I see those folks shifting over to the metro. Also, the afternoon rush where I expect ridership to be high (3-5) won't be impacted by rush hour commuters who will mostly be going the other way toward Loudon.

For those living in DC, I agree that it won't be a significant benefit. It's just too much of a pain to do frequently.

And building the station in front the daily garage? Absolutely ridiculous.

I'm the same, but I live right off the Airport Access Road at the 495 interchange so I actually choose to go to IAD most days because of the reliability of the commute.