Securing Growth and Robust Leadership in American Aviation Act--

Floor Speech

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Mr. KAINE. Madam President, I rise today, certain that, by now, some of the desk staff have memorized the speech I am about to give because it is the third time that I will have given it in the last few weeks on a topic that is really important to Virginia--the FAA reauthorization bill that is now pending before the body.

I want to thank Chairwoman Cantwell, Ranking Member Cruz, and the members of the Commerce Committee because, as a general matter, this is a necessary bill with a lot of good provisions in it--in particular, the work on air traffic control recruitment and training and pilot training hours.

I feel very, very good about that work that has been done. But the gist of this bill is to promote air safety, and there is one provision in the bill that is dramatically contrary to the thrust of this bill. It will not increase air safety. It will reduce air safety, and it will reduce air safety in the Capital of the United States--at Reagan National Airport, otherwise known as DCA.

I am going to summarize quickly the arguments I made in the last couple of weeks, but then I want to respond to at least three questions that folks who take a position opposite to me have raised and use some data to demonstrate that those questions, though honestly raised, have answers, and the answers actually verify and uphold the position that I and my Maryland and Virginia colleagues take: that we should not be jamming more flights onto the busiest runway in the United States.

Reagan National Airport, DCA, was built a long time ago. It is a postage stamp; it is 860 acres. By order of comparison, Dulles Airport is about 12,000 acres; Dallas-Fort Worth is about 19,000 acres; and Denver is 32,000 acres.

When Reagan National was built, it was a little bit the trend to build these smaller airports near downtowns because the airplanes were smaller, they were props with fewer passengers, they were lighter, and they didn't need as much runway space to take off or land.

When Reagan National was built on these 860 acres--and if you have been there, you know that it is 860 that can't be expanded because it is surrounded on three sides by water and on the other side by the George Washington Parkway; there is no way to expand this--it was built with three runways: a primary runway and two commuter runways.

The estimate was, in the 1960s, that Reagan National, with these three runways, could accommodate 15 million passengers a year--15 million passengers a year. Well, where are we today, circa 2024? Reagan National has now 25\1/2\ million passengers a year--25\1/2\ million passengers--an additional two-thirds over what it was built for on a landlocked footprint, with three runways.

There have been a couple other important changes at Reagan National. The idea was to spread the 15 million passengers over three runways, but that was when the planes were smaller and they were props. Now they are jets, and they can't land on the shorter runways. So today at Reagan National, 90 percent of the traffic into Reagan National has to use the main runway.

Think about this: If it was 15 million equally divided, then each runway would bring about 5 million passengers a year. Now the main runway doesn't have 5 million, it was 22\1/2\ million passengers a year, with only about 2\1/2\ to 3 million on the other two runways.

There has been another major change since this projection of 15 million a year was made, and that is 9/11. In the aftermath of 9/11, we imposed dramatically more stringent security requirements on the air patterns over Reagan National to make it much harder to get into a landing zone to land or to take off.

So what does that mean? Built for 15\1/2\ million on a landlocked spot, now at 25 million--what does it mean? Well, it means that the main runway at Reagan National is now the single busiest runway in the United States. Reagan National, because it is small, is not the busiest airport in the United States. It is only 19th in terms of total passengers in and out. But that main runway, with 90 percent of the traffic, is the busiest runway in the United States.

What does that mean? What does it mean to have one primary runway with 90 percent of the traffic that is the busiest in the United States? Well, it is pretty easy to predict. It means very significant congestion. Let me give some stats about that.

Reagan, as the 19th busiest airport in the United States, has the 8th most daily delays. You calculate daily delay by the percentages of incoming and outgoing that are delayed and multiply it by the average delay. More than 20 percent of flights into and out of Reagan National are delayed. They are not delayed by a little. There are some airports that have worse on-time records, but the delay is a little bit of a delay. The average delay of flights in and out of Reagan National, once delayed, is 67 minutes already. That accounts to over 11,000 minutes of delay every day.

What does delay mean? Delay means, OK, you are late arrival or you are late taking off. But if you are taking off, you might be trying to make a connecting flight. It also means you take off late, and you are likely to miss your connecting flight. If you are coming in late and the plane is supposed to leave to take some people out and go somewhere else, the delay cascades down, and it affects the entire system.

Delay isn't the only measure of this airport's congestion; the second one is the number of canceled flights. Some airports have cancellations--I mean, maybe in Madison when the weather is not so great or Anchorage or the Windy City or Minneapolis. DCA has the third worst cancellation rate among these airports. And it is not because of weather. The weather here in DC may not be great, but it is not catastrophic either. The delay is a function of congestion.

Here is another measure: Planes that are landing, that upon landing have to get rerouted into a looping pattern--DCA is the third worst in that. Why does that matter? Well, first, it creates delay, but second, if you are looping planes through a constricted airspace as planes are taking off and landing every minute, you are increasing the risk of accident.

By all these measures--delay, average daily delay, cancellations, looping patterns--this airport, built for 15 million and now at 25 million, has serious problems already before you add any more flights to it.

The problems are more than just delay; the problems are also safety. I mean, we are all experienced folks, and we know that on roads, the more congested the road, the more likely an accident. Roads that are lightly traveled are less likely to have accidents. Roads that are more heavily traveled are more likely to have accidents.

I talked about this before I had a chance to play the air traffic control tape for colleagues of mine. I can't do that on the floor of the Senate. But about 2 weeks ago, there was a plane maneuvering on the main runway to take off and another plane trying to maneuver to one of the smaller runways to take off, and they almost collided. The frantic voice of the air traffic controller can be heard shouting ``Stop! Stop!'' These planes ended up stopping within 300 feet of each other, inside 100 yards of each other, at this super-busy airport.

Thank God a collision and a catastrophe were averted, but more and more planes on this busiest runway in the United States is just going to increase the chance of a significant incident. Don't take my word for it. Even though as Senators I know we like to think we are experts about everything, there are experts on this--the Federal Aviation Administration and the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority. What does the FAA say about this? They point out--all the statistics I have just given you come from the FAA.

There is a Senate proposal before us that would add 10 flights into Reagan National. That is called five slots. Each slot is a flight in and a flight out--a total of 10 more flights a day.

What does the FAA say about it? They have given the committee and they have given the Senators from the region the same set of data, and what they say is that you can't even add one flight in without increasing delay, which is already significant, but if you add 10--5 slots--the delay will increase by 751 minutes a day.

There are already more than 11,000 minutes of delay a day. If you take the flights that are delayed and you multiply it by the minutes that they are delayed, adding 5 slots--10 flights--will add to that 751 additional minutes of delay; 751 minutes that make people late, that jeopardize their ability to get a connection, that cause cascading delays in the other airports, which are going to maybe be the recipients of planes taking off later from Reagan National.

That is what the FAA, charged with the safe and efficient operation of American airspace, is telling the U.S. Senate.

The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority--Congress created it in the late 1980s. Congress appoints its Board and charges it with the operation not only of Reagan National but also Dulles Airport. What does the MWAA say? MWAA says: Stop. Stop. Don't add any more flights because the delay is already unacceptable, and if you jam more flights onto the busiest runway in the United States, you raise the safety risk.

Again, we Senators like to think we know a lot. We don't know as much about efficient and safe air traffic operations as the Federal Aviation Administration. We don't know as much as the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority.

So when the delay statistics already point out that this is unacceptable, when the cancellation and looping into loop statistics are dangerous, when we have had a near collision that is a flashing red warning signal right in our face before this vote, when the FAA has said you can't even put one flight in without increasing what is already unacceptable delay, and when the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority that we created, and we appoint their Board, says don't do this, why would we do this? Why would we do this?

The Senators from the region who have the most at stake stand uniform--Senators Cardin, Van Hollen, Warner, and I--opposed to the slot increase that is in the Senate bill that is pending before us. We have an amendment that would strip those 5 slots--10 flights--out so that we don't make this worse.

Since I last appeared on the floor to talk about this last week, colleagues have come up to me with some questions. They have raised three.

Here is one: DCA is under capacity because DCA was approved for more than 1,000 flights a day in the 1960s, and there are only 890 flights in and out today, so therefore there must be more capacity at DCA.

Those who ask that question are stating a truth. DCA was approved for over 1,000 flights a day in the 1960s when most of the flights had props, not jets; when most of the craft were smaller and had fewer passengers and could take off and land on shorter runways. So, yes, in the aviation world of the 1960s, DCA was approved for over 1,000 flights, but in the aviation world of 2024, where it is jets with more passengers that take more time to land and take off, that isn't that relevant. It is not that relevant.

In fact, another change that has happened that is important, that I alluded to earlier, is we were set up for more than 1,000 in and out in the 1960s--well, 9/11 happened since then. After 9/11, thank God, we have imposed much more stringent criteria on air traffic over the DC region--the Capitol, the Pentagon, the White House, Congress--to make sure there aren't challenges in the airspace that would lead to really serious harm and risk to people on planes and people who live in the area.

So the FAA has said: You are right, we did approve a higher capacity in the 1960s, but the changes in the number and size of planes have constricted them to the one runway, and changes in the airspace have made it harder. That is why even though we are not at the capacity that was established in the 1960s, you can't even put one more flight--one more flight--into DCA without expanding delay.

So that is the first argument. Yes, the 1960s was different, and 2024 is a completely different kettle of fish. You shouldn't be jamming flights onto this runway.

The second thing I have heard said is, well, DCA actually has pretty good on-time percentage--not bad delay, good on-time percentage.

It is true, if you just look at the percentage of planes that land or take off on time, DCA is better than some airports. Now, it is kind of sad to say that 20-plus percent of our flights are delayed in and out, and that is better than some others. But here is what you have to know: Which airport would you feel more comfortable flying into--one with an 80-percent on- time record but where the average delay in that 20 percent was 67 percent or what if you flew into one with a worse on-time record but where the average delay was 10 minutes? Sixty-seven minutes is a hassle. Sixty-seven minutes means a missed connection. Sixty-seven minutes means cascading delay throughout the system. Three minutes or ten minutes doesn't.

So just looking at the on-time percentage doesn't give you the full picture of this airport, and that is why the FAA measures delay not in on-time percentage but in total daily delay. Based on that measure, DCA is not a high performer. It is already a poor performer, and we shouldn't add to it.

The last thing I will say, and then I will yield to other colleagues who wish to speak, is that some have said: Oh, this is just a fight between some airlines. You know, United likes it one way. Delta likes it another way. Maybe some other airlines aren't expressing their position.

Who cares about them? Who cares about the airlines? We ought to care about safety. We ought to care about passengers. We ought to care about the 25\1/2\ million people who are using this DCA airport on an annual basis, and we ought to weigh that 25\1/2\ million a lot heavier than a couple of dozen people in the Senate who would like to have more convenience on flights at DCA.

And this is ultimately about the Senate, because, as I have said to my colleagues, the House took up the same issue in the FAA reauthorization bill, and in the committee, they chose not to jam more flights into DCA. Then, when the bill was on the floor, someone tried to make the amendment that is the same amendment that is before us today: Hey, why not add 5 flights, 10 flights?

And the House rejected this. So this is not a battle with the House. The House has accepted the advocacy of the FAA and MWAA and the regional delegation. They paid heed to the potential impacts on delays and cancellations and even potential collisions, and they said: We are not going to run this risk. The last thing we want is for there to be something bad happen out at that airport, and people stick a mic in our face and say: You knew all this, and you were warned. But you voted for it anyway?

So the House rejected this, and what Senator Warner and I and Senators Van Hollen and Cardin, the four Senators from the region affected by this bill--affected very dramatically by the bill--are asking is, we hope our Senate colleagues will too.

We want to support this FAA bill. It has a lot of good in it. But when it comes to jamming more flights on the busiest runway in the United States, we are saying exactly what this air traffic controller said, narrowly avoiding a collision: Stop! Stop! For God's sake, stop!

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