A new compromise proposal from a bipartisan group of lawmakers would add seven more nonstop flight slots out of Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.
The number of options in the new proposal falls far short of the lawmakers' original plan, which would have added 28 flights to the airport in Arlington.
DCA is one of the busiest runways in the United States.
That's with the current perimeter rule, which limits nonstop flights in and out of the airport to 1,250 miles. Another rule caps the number of slots for flights into and out of the airport.
A bipartisan group of House lawmakers behind the plan to increase flights sought to change those rules. They aim to make it easier to fly into and out of the closest airport to Capitol Hill, arguing that it will increase access to the nation's capitol, create jobs and revenue, and make things more convenient.
The new compromise plan, which the Washington Post reported on Tuesday, adds under a third of the originally proposed number of flights.
Discussion about that plan on Monday in the House Rules Committee touted that decrease in the proposed number. Members often focused on free market ideals and increasing competition between airlines, and at one point called the perimeter rule "arbitrary."
An internal May 25 memo from the Federal Aviation Administration, published by the Washington Post in early June, stated that adding any more flights to DCA's already overcrowded capacity would increase the number of delays at the airport.
"Based on Annual Service Volume (ASV) delay analysis, we find that an increase of 20 daily round trip operations would increase delay by 25.9%, and an increase of 25 daily round trip operations would increase delay by 33.2% at DCA," the memo reads.
The compromise proposal of seven long-distance flights is still causing frustration for some, like Virginia Senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, who believe federal lawmakers shouldn't be meddling in DCA's business at all.
Both Maryland senators joined Kaine and Warner in their opposition to flight increases.
"Congress shouldn't be micromanaging the DC airports," Kaine said on Tuesday afternoon. "The federal government used to run Reagan National and Dulles, and they did such an abysmally bad job of it that Congress in the 1980s put it in the hands of the Washington Metro Airports Authority. And they're doing a great job managing it."
