Fastest way from IAD to DCA (plane, train or automobile)
Posted by:
Buck Rogers
()
Date: September 19, 2018 09:06AM
The correct answer is plane: 22 minutes IAD to DCA.
From the Washington Post (9/18/2018)
Southwest flight 5691, which originated in Dallas, was diverted to Dulles because of storms. Two hours later passengers were back in the air, bound for National.
Getting from Dulles International to Reagan National Airport can be a pain — as many harried travelers in the D.C. region know. There is no Metro station at Dulles yet, so the journey to National requires a shuttle bus on top of a transfer. And don’t even get us started on trying to make the drive on Interstate 66.
Yes, congestion is bad. But is it so bad that we need a direct flight from Dulles to National?
As some travelers learned Monday, the trip by air can be just as hectic.
A Southwest Airlines flight bound for National from Dallas Love Field was diverted to Dulles on Monday night because of the heavy rains that pummeled the Washington region. The plane circled over West Virginia as the storms hit, but as fuel started to run low, one passenger recounted, air traffic control sent the flight to Dulles.
That was the beginning of a 2½-hour journey that turned a Boeing 737 into an airport shuttle, ferrying passengers from one D.C. airport to another.
When all was said and done, some passengers who arrived at Dulles about 7 p.m. disembarked around 9:30 p.m. at National — 23 miles away.
###
Once airborne, however, the flight was pretty painless. The plane cruised at a top speed of 297 mph as it wove a path from Woodbridge back toward Montgomery County and finally to National. All in all, the flight took about 22 minutes, according to FlightAware. For now, at least, it is the fastest way between the two airports.
“Congrats on being the first person I ever met who got to fly from IAD to DCA,” said one of them, according to Kreiger. “That’s amazing.”