Delays and cancellations consumed 41% of arrivals at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport last month as airport officials say Marine One helicopter flights triggered new safety procedures enacted after January’s deadly crash.
The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority this week said 34% of February arrivals were delayed, up from 11% in February 2024. An additional 7% of flights were canceled, up from half a percent last year.
The Federal Aviation Administration suspended nonessential helicopter flights and enacted stricter separation rules after the Jan. 29 collision between an American Airlines jet and Army Black Hawk helicopter killed 67 people.
Acting on preliminary recommendations from the National Transportation Safety Board, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced this month that he was making the changes permanent.
The new helicopter restrictions do not affect Marine One, which has always grounded all other flights.
Speaking Wednesday to his MWAA board, CEO Jack Potter thanked Mr. Duffy and the FAA for solidifying the changes. But he acknowledged the new rules were causing “frequent ground stops and ground delay programs when helicopter traffic for VIP movements or other security-related activities take place close to the airport, resulting in significant flight delays which are negatively affecting the customer experience.”
He added, according to a transcript shared with The Washington Times, “We apologize for these unavoidable circumstances and appreciate everyone’s patience and understanding. Safety is first and foremost, and we will continue working with our federal partners and the industry to improve operational reliability at Reagan National.”
The NTSB is still investigating the crash. The NTSB, White House and Transportation Department didn’t respond Friday to requests for comment.
An MWAA spokesperson referred questions about Marine One safety procedures to the FAA.
An FAA official confirmed that only presidential helicopter trips count as “VIP flights” and referred questions about whether their number has increased to the White House.
The official also referred to a March 14 statement on the NTSB’s preliminary findings about January’s crash. In it, the FAA pledged to use new technology to improve flight operations and risk management.
“To make us more predictive, we are using machine learning and language modeling to scan incident reports and mine multiple data sources to find themes and areas of risk,” the FAA said.
Several industry insiders interviewed by The Times were split on whom to blame for the increase in flight interruptions.
Robert W. Mann, a former American Airlines executive, blamed the Trump administration for letting nonessential officials take “so-called VIP helicopter trips” on Marine One for their convenience.
“Someone should be asking for those manifests,” Mr. Mann said, noting that they would include photos of any passengers boarding Marine One without the president or vice president accompanying them.
He said the 59% of planes that arrived on time at Reagan National last month fell well below the industry’s normal rate of 75% to 80%.
“DCA has become unusable as an origin, destination or connecting airport,” added Mr. Mann, an independent airline consultant in Port Washington, New York. “The present issue is classifying any Marine One helicopter operation — for anyone, not even government employees — as VIP, which shuts down DCA.”
Mary Schiavo, a former inspector general for the Transportation Department under former Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, said the bigger problem is that the federal government forces too many passengers to connect through a small number of hub airports such as DCA.
Although Washington National Airport was supposed to close after Washington Dulles International Airport opened in 1962, she pointed out that Congress has frequently voted to expand air traffic at the busy spot near the White House, making it one of the most crowded airspaces in the nation.
“This is 100% Congress’ fault for concentrating traffic at DCA, which was never intended to be a hub, and it’s strictly a convenience for Washington government types and the airlines,” said Ms. Schiavo, whose former job gave her oversight over the FAA. “Marine One is a really small part of the traffic.”
An NTSB review of 944,179 commercial arrivals and departures at DCA from October 2021 to December 2024 found 15,214 near-collisions between commercial planes and military choppers with less than 400 feet of vertical separation.
In its preliminary report this month, NTSB investigators said the Jan. 29 crash likely occurred nearly 300 feet from the ground as the commercial airliner descended and the Army helicopter strayed well above its 200-foot limit while conducting a nighttime test flight.
“Of the 15,000 near-misses, that’s not Marine One,” Ms. Schiavo added. “The congestion was caused by thousands of flights for other purposes.”
As flight interruptions surged last month, officials insisted on greater separation between aircraft and restricted commercial traffic at Reagan.
According to the airline tracking website FlightAware, there were 830 arrivals and departures at Reagan on the day of the crash, up from 817 on Jan. 29 last year but below the 840 flights recorded on the same day in 2023.
Over the following weeks, the tally of daily flights fell below the past two years, dropping to 694 on Feb. 17 and hitting 814 seven days later, when 177 were delayed and 20 were canceled. Overall, flight volume at Reagan was down 10% from 2023 over the seven days ending Feb. 24.
According to WMAA, flight interruptions have improved in recent weeks. At the same time, the CEO reported Wednesday that 26.2 million people traveled through Reagan National in 2024, up steadily from a 2020 low point of 7.5 million during pandemic travel restrictions and above the 23.9 million who flew in 2019.
In an email Friday, the airline industry suggested that increased safety concerns after January’s crash justified the increase in flight interruptions at Reagan last month.
“The safety of passengers and crew is and always will be our top priority, and we will continue to follow the guidance of the FAA and NTSB in our shared goal to keep aviation the safest mode of transportation in the world,” said Airlines for America, a trade group representing major U.S. air carriers.
Steve Polzin, an Arizona State University professor researching mass transportation, urged patience while airport officials balance the new safety guidelines with the need to improve flight times.
“It’s too soon to get a full measure of the consequences of the changes,” Mr. Polzin said. “More time will allow some refinements in the operational responses and provide a chance to filter out the impacts from weather and other changes from those that can be attributed to the operational changes.”
