Window on the Capital City
In praise of the world’s greatest airport.

Mr. Moore is president of the Club for Growth
October 4, 2001 9:15 a.m.

'm not usually one who gets sentimental about buildings or monuments, but the Reagan National Airport is a great American icon. It is very good news for the country that this spectacular and stately airport reopens today. Suddenly the skies seem a lot friendlier with Reagan National back in business.

My first trip ever into what was then just "National" airport was probably not much different than for so many other Americans. It was during our Saints Faith, Hope, and Charity eighth-grade fieldtrip to Washington back in 1973. And what I will never forget about that trip (other than getting nearly sent home by Monsignor Flanigan on the first night for smuggling beer and cigarettes into our Marriott Hotel room) was gazing out of the window as we descended into National on a crystal-clear May evening in 1973. "There is the Washington Monument!" we all blurted in unison, like a bunch of well-giddy school children. "I see the Capitol," hollered someone in the seat behind me. The photos in the civics textbooks just don't do justice to any of these resolute symbols of freedom.

Over the past 20 years that I have now lived and worked in Washington I would venture to guess that I have flown into National perhaps 250 times. I'll be damned if I don't still get the same goose bumps staring out the window at those magnificent and muscular marble monuments that I did some 25 years ago. It's just the best way to capture the grandeur of our capital city unless you have the money to rent a hot-air balloon and float down Pennsylvania Ave.

Now I have to confess that I also love National for purely selfish reasons. Has there ever been a more convenient airport to any city in the world? I mean really? Before September 11th, I could leave my office at 18th and K and be aboard a shuttle to New York in 23 minutes — if it wasn't rush hour. It practically takes 23 minutes to take those blasted shuttle trains just to get to your gate at Dulles Airport. And from now on, alas, it will take 23 minutes just to get through the lengthy security lines and the metal detectors. At New York's LaGuardia it can take 23 minutes just to wait for a cab.

The design of National airport is superb in every regard. Its glass and stone façade with high curving ceilings are like those of a cathedral. It is spanking clean. It is comfortable. It seems — and what a novel idea — designed to maximize the satisfaction of its customers. One reason the airport is back in business is that members of Congress, who appropriate funds to help pay the airport's bills, are heavy users — and they were no more thrilled about the prospect of flying out of Baltimore than I was.

Despite servicing hundreds of flights a day, National is easily the least congested and least claustrophobic airport on the east coast. This is no small point: There is plenty of parking in the nearby garage, meaning that you don't have to take a shuttle bus from some remote "satellite" lot three miles away from the terminals. Every departure gate is easily accessible in about six or seven minutes walking time. At DFW in Dallas or Chicago's O'Hare, you could run a marathon in the terminals and still not arrive at your departure gate.

The security concern over National Airport's proximity to downtown Washington, the White House, the Capitol, and the Pentagon is admittedly no small problem. The Defense Department would have less than ten seconds to distinguish between a plane descending into the airport runway and one crashing as a missile into the Pentagon. But this closeness to D.C. is also its great attraction. The new-style mega-airports sprouting up around the country seem to be built with the intention of milking out-of-towners with the maximum cab fare possible. The new Denver airport is an abomination in this regard. You drive 15 miles just to get close to civilization and another 15 to get into downtown Denver. By contrast, I feel almost sorry for the immigrant D.C. cabbies who wait in line for an hour or two for passengers at National and then often get rewarded with a puny $16 fare.

It makes great sense that private jets will no longer be serviced in and out of National. The landing slots are so valuable, it was sheer idiocy to allow Cessna's to fly in and out with three or four fat-cat passengers, thus bumping out of the queue jumbo jets with 200 passengers. It's high time that our airports charged competitive market rates and peak-hour pricing for landing slots.

Kudos to George W. Bush for reopening National — albeit on a much slimmed-down flight schedule. Bush was right to proclaim that by opening up Reagan National for business again, we say to the terrorists: You bastards failed. We're all systems go. (Here I'm paraphrasing the president, of course.)

A great city deserves — no, it needs — a great airport. It's the world's window to the city. (When you arrive at the dilapidated airport in Detroit you just somehow get the sense you're in a city that you don't want to stay too long in.) Reagan National is as much a monument to Washington, D.C. as is the Jefferson or Lincoln Memorial or the Kennedy Center. It should remain open for at least another 100 years.