Before having the honor of representing the people of the 114th District in the Kansas House of Representatives, I was a captain for United Airlines for 28 years.
I flew thousands of people all over the world, including into Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport — one of Washington, D.C.’s primary airports.
Many Kansas residents travel to D.C. every year, but there’s a federal regulation that was established by Congress in 1966 that impacts how we get there and how much we pay for airline tickets. It’s called the “perimeter rule” — and there’s a battle happening right now in the halls of Congress over whether to modernize it.
Kansans have a reason to be invested in the outcome.
Today, the only direct flight to Reagan for Kansas travelers is from Kansas City, Missouri. Fortunately, a new direct flight to Reagan is coming to Wichita’s Eisenhower National Airport starting in January. As we work to attract families and businesses to grow our state, we must build on this momentum and pursue more affordable access to markets around the country, including our nation’s capital.
Unfortunately, the perimeter rule strictly limits Reagan’s long-distance flights, and it is the only airport in the country that is governed by a federal regulation like this. The primary stated reasons to enact such a policy back in 1966 was to allow the newly-built Dulles International, the capital region’s other airport, to grow, and to protect residences near Reagan from noise pollution.
The demand for air travel has changed significantly over the past 60 years. Aircraft performance has improved significantly and noise levels are now dramatically lower.
Dulles is a thriving airport in the capital region with domestic and international flights. Yet, the perimeter rule still persists and these restrictions are now costing travelers sky-high prices when they fly to the nation’s capital.
In fact, Washington, D.C. is now the most expensive air travel market of any major U.S. city. It’s suppressing competition, enabling only a handful of airlines, particularly my former employer United Airlines, to control most of the market. United controls 80% of the gates at Dulles and it does not want more competition. This is why United is leading an expensive lobbying campaign to defeat this effort and leave in place a protectionist policy that helps their financial bottom line at the expense of air travelers.
It is disappointing to see some in our state, including some voices published on this opinion page, misled by their campaign.
I loved my time working for United but as an elected leader in my community, I will always put Kansans first. And you don’t have to be an economist to know that fewer choices lead to higher prices.
Time and again, including in the air travel industry, free markets lead to additional options and more competitive costs for consumers. After the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978, ticket prices dropped while choices increased, and air travel was no longer a luxury few could afford.
It doesn’t make sense that the Washington, D.C., market is still controlled by a stagnant, anticompetitive regulation enacted by Congress before the Boeing 737 made its first commercial flight.
Protectionism serves few at the expense of many, and it’s the Kansas students, families, business leaders and policymakers who want and need to affordably travel to Washington, D.C. who are being hurt most.
Only Congress can authorize new flights to Reagan — and in a rare act of bipartisanship, Republicans and Democrats are coming together on a commonsense free-market solution. The Direct Capital Access Act, also known as the DCA Act, would reverse course on this decades-long, anti-competitive trend and add new direct flights inside and outside of Reagan’s artificial perimeter.
