In the wake of the crash of American Eagle 5342 at Washington/National (DCA) airport, the airport is facing a tough future full of delays as regulators start to restrict the airport’s operation at the same time flights are expanding. If that makes no sense to you, you are not alone.
As reported by Reuters, DCA will have its arrival rate reduced from 28 to 26 flights per hour to create an extra safety buffer at the airport. This comes when traffic is at a relative low point, and it’s already going to snarl operations. But more flying is coming.
I took a look at Anuvu flight status data to show just how things are shaping up. It’s not great.
Washington/National Operational Stats
Data via Anuvu
You can see relative spikes when weather or, of course, the accident itself, caused brief delays and cancellations. But as you can see on the right side of the chart, cancellations have been up and on-time operations (arrivals within 14 minutes) down since the accident.
Arrivals in particular are suffering more than departures at the airport, presumably because there’s enough buffer to turn some of the airplanes around even after a later arrival. But this is just the beginning.
If we take a look at schedules, we are at something of a low point right now.
Average Daily Arrivals at Washington/National
Data via Cirium
First, we have the five new beyond-perimeter slots which were just awarded. This will boost operations starting in the very-near future. You can also see a planned increase from American. I don’t know what that is related to, but my guess is that it may be American stepping in to temporarily use slots that others are parking.
You an see the drop in flying for other airlines on the black line. Why? It’s all about the slow waiver program.
You’ll remember that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) put slot waivers in place for the New York airports to try and reduce the operational gridlock up there. As part of that, they also allowed airlines to reduce up to 10 percent of operations at DCA without penalty. Why? It’s because the FAA knew that many of the New York flights that would go away would likely be on the high-frequenty DCA route. If it didn’t provide slot relief at DCA, those reductions wouldn’t happen.
With that slot waiver, well, the airlines gladly gave up flights.
Monthly Arrivals at DCA from New York Airports
Data via Cirium
That is the state of play at the airport today, but what is the real impact? I don’t have runway timings, but I did go into March to look at the current number of hourly arrivals on a random Monday.
Scheduled DCA Arrivals by Hour – March 10, 2025
Data via Cirium
Early in the day, it’s not a problem. Even in that busy 9am hour, the hours before and after are pretty low, so it won’t have that much of a disruption. But the noon hour is when things start to get tough. And the 3pm/4pm time frame followed by the peak 8pm/9pm time frame is where arrivals have the potential to really get stacked up since they have two hours in row that fall above the limit.
Now, we have to remember that DCA had relatively decent performance until now, so being over the rate hasn’t been a real hindrance so far. But schedules were also a little lower before. Peak times in March have a couple more arrivals than than they did just last month. And those five new beyond-perimeter flights will be starting soon. Combine that with the reduction in arrival rate and things are going to be squeezed.
Something is going to have to be done to fix this airport, and the current bandage is not a long-term solution.
