ARLnow27%
Reagan National targets summer rebound after rocky start to 2026 51%
By Scott McCaffrey21%
7/19/2026, 2:30:57 PM
Topics: Airport Traffic, Economic Trends
BS Summary: This article contains 16 faulty reasoning types, including Post Hoc (False Cause), Confirmation Bias, and Negativity Bias, with Optimism Bias as the most egregious example at 28.3% saturation with 135 hits. Analysis detected 751 faulty-reasoning hits from 477 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 50.9% and a BS Rank of 51% (10,724 of 21,886 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 51.00% of the article peer group.
After a challenging 2025 and an up and down start to 2026, airport officials are hopeful for sustained passenger strength at Reagan National Airport through autumn.
"We anticipate the [summer] months to be strong," said Paul Bobson, vice president for airline business development at the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA).
Bobson was speaking during a July 15 MWAA board of directors committee meeting.
After a difficult 2025, Reagan National so far in 2026 has seen highs and lows:
January's count of passenger enplanements (-2.2% year over year) was impacted by wintry weather, including the late-month snow/ice combination
February (+3%) and March (+3.1%) saw year-over-year improvements, with March travel data benefiting from Easter falling that month
In part because of the early Easter, April saw passenger totals down 7.2% year over year, with May recording a 4.7% decline
June figures are not yet posted, but Chryssa Westerlund, an MWAA executive vice president and its chief revenue officer, offered one positive note related to the month in her July 15 report to MWAA board members.
Westerlund noted that concession revenues over the Juneteenth holiday were up 11% year over year at Reagan National.
Concession offerings expanded in June at the airport with the opening of a Busboys & Poets location in Concourse D, a pier within Terminal B used by American Airlines.
July's air-traffic report likely will benefit from visitors coming to mark the nation's 250th birthday.
Offsetting that boost could be the closure of airport operations for portions of July 3-4 owing to airspace restrictions related to Independence Day, and a ground stop during a portion of July 14 for what was described as a VIP movement.
In 2025, Reagan National marked its lowest passenger count in three years, as the region was impacted by Trump Administration downsizing efforts.
The airport also faced service restrictions following the deadly January 2025 collision between a U.S.
Army helicopter and American Airlines regional jet.
Just under 24.9 million passengers traveled through DCA last year, down 5.3% from 26.3 million in 2024.
At Dulles International, passenger counts through May were down about 2% year over year.
Restrictions on travel to and through the Mideast were one reason for the decline, as was a temporary increase in spring-of-2025 traffic when United Airlines increased service to Dulles to accommodate runway reconstruction work at another hub, Newark-Liberty International.
Dulles set an all-time passenger record in 2025, and its year-over-year 6.6% growth rate was the highest among major U.S. airports, according to federal data.
Factoring out that additional United service last year, passenger counts at Dulles were up 0.7% for the first five months of 2026, Westerlund said.
For the first six months of the year, MWAA revenue at both airports totaled $458.3 million, up 7.3% from the same period in 2025 and 2.6% above budget.
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