Kaine & Warner Unveil Legislation to Reduce Traffic, Improve Safety at DCA

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today, U.S. Senators Tim Kaine and Mark R. Warner (both D-VA) announced the DCA Air Safety Act, legislation that would improve safety in the constrained and complex airspace around Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA) after last year’s deadly midair collision that claimed 67 lives. The bill would cap hourly arrivals, reduce the clustering of flights, and remove 30 slots—thereby addressing issues that contributed to the January 2025 disaster. The legislation would also mandate reports to Congress, public comment, and expert input to ensure that implementation is occurring in a manner that best improves safety.

“In the wake of the midair collision that killed 67 people last year near DCA, Congress must do more to ensure that the highest level of safety regulations is in place to prevent future tragedies,” said Kaine. “While I support various proposals to help do that, it’s obvious that any set of reforms that doesn’t address overcrowding at this airport—which sits along restricted airspace and is already operating beyond capacity—is dangerously insufficient. That’s why this legislation lays out a commonsense plan to decrease hourly arrivals and reduce flight clustering and overall traffic, and we urge our colleagues to put safety first and join us in getting it across the finish line as quickly as possible.”

“We owe it to the victims of the fatal mid-air collision near DCA and their loved ones to take action and prevent a tragedy like this from ever happening again. DCA’s overburdened runway is the busiest in the country, and the National Transportation Safety Board’s investigation of the January 2025 crash underscored the serious risks posed by unsustainable traffic levels at the airport. Yet since the collision, there have been numerous near misses in DCA airspace,” said Warner. “For years, Senator Kaine and I have been warning that DCA is overcrowded and have fought to reduce the number of slot exemptions at the airport. The risks are now painfully clear, and Congress cannot wait for another tragedy to act. I urge my colleagues to quickly support this legislation to cap hourly arrivals, reduce flight clustering, decrease slot exemptions, and put passenger safety first.”

Specifically, the DCA Air Safety Act would:

• Cap hourly arrivals by requiring the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to reduce DCA’s Airport Arrival Rate to no more than 28 aircraft per consecutive 60-minute period, thereby decreasing the likelihood of a collision.
• Reduce flight clustering, i.e., when takeoffs and landings are condensed into short, high-intensity windows, by requiring the establishment of binding 30-minute interval caps within 180 days so operations are distributed evenly across each hour.
• Eliminate 30 slots over five years to reduce overcrowding, including at least 26 beyond-perimeter (i.e., flights that have been given permission to operate outside of the airport’s 1,250-mile range limit) exemptions. The legislation would phase in the eliminations at a rate of six per year, starting in 2028, with full implementation required by the end of 2032.
• Require a public process from the FAA, specifically the publication of a proposed list of slots to be eliminated, a 60-day public comment period, and the publication of a final list within 120 days after the public comment period closes.

Since 2000, DCA has added 64 daily flights, known as slots, straining the airport’s capacity. On the night of the January 2025 midair collision, there was an 18-minute period in which one single air traffic controller was responsible for managing 29 separate aircraft, including a 5-minute span with 6 takeoffs or landings – clear evidence of an airport pushed past its breaking point to the detriment of passenger safety.

Kaine and Warner have consistently sounded the alarm about hazardous overcrowding in DCA’s airspace and have called on Congress to reduce the number of slots at DCA, even before the January 2025 midair collision. After the publication of the National Transportation Safety Board’s (NTSB) report on the causes of the disaster—which included evidence that airspace overcrowding and high controller workload contributed to the crash—the senators again urged Congress to act to remove slots and enact other safety measures and supported the Rotorcraft Operations Transparency and Reform (ROTOR) Act, legislation that would enact safety reforms at DCA and similarly-sized airports and improved coordination between the FAA and Department of Defense. In the weeks after the accident, Kaine and Warner, along with Senators Jerry Moran (R-KS) and Roger Marshall (R-KS), secured Senate passage of a resolution honoring and remembering the 67 victims of the collision.

Full text of the legislation is available here.

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