Clearly a lot of people prefer flying out of National, even if I don't quite get it. I got used to flying out of Dulles growing up and it was just never a big deal to me because I wasn't trying to get there from downtown DC. I grew up off the GW Parkway near Mt. Vernon and my dad was in Bailey's Crossroads, but getting to Dulles just wasn't a big hassle. Getting to National was 20-30 minutes and Dulles 30-45. Not a big difference.

The bigger issue with letting the market decide is that there are also costs that the airlines don't have to bear directly with flying out of DCA. One, a lot more people are affected by the noise. And two, traffic along the GW Parkway and in Alexandria is impacted by the airport. The footprint of the airport, the infrastructure, and its location just aren't conducive to being a large scale international hub. It's got the single busiest runway in America as it is. In theory the market would take care of that if delays and crowding got to be too bad, but you have to suffer through the correction in the meantime. Or you can just stick with the setup that exists now. That's why the Virginia politicians are always arguing against expanding the perimeter and it's why Dulles was created in the first place.