Statement of

CHARLES DARWIN SNELLING

concerning

his Nomination to a Second Term as a

Member of the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority

before the

COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, SCIENCE, AND TRANSPORTATION

UNITED STATES SENATE

May 24, 2007

Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee:

I am Charles Snelling, the President's nominee to a second term as a Member of the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority Board of Directors. I am delighted to appear before you again.

I was last here in September 2006, in a hearing on my nomination to the same position. Although the Committee reported my nomination unanimously, the Senate did not act on its report, and the President nominated me again in January.

The President appoints three Directors of the Airports Authority, and the three of us are proud to be among the most active members of the 13-member Board. We each chair a Committee that meets monthly. For two years, I served as Chairman of the Finance Committee, and have recently been named Chairman of a new Planning and Construction Committee. As I have advised this Committee before, my prior experience on the Board of the Lehigh Valley Hospital , a billion-dollar charity, has proven most helpful training for my service on the Airports Authority.

Mr. Chairman, as most Senators use our Airports, I think it useful to mention briefly the major issues pressing us. First, as you may be aware, the Airports Authority is about to assume responsibility for the construction of the Metrorail extension that will connect the entire region with Dulles Airport, a project we will finance in large part with tolls from the Dulles Toll Road. We have been engaged in difficult negotiations over the price of the rail project, but have managed to agree on a contract that sets a price within the Federal Transit Administration efficiency standards. It now appears that we will soon be engaged in rail construction at the same time as airport construction. We relish the challenge.

On the aviation side, our efforts are both to attract new services and make sure our facilities are ready to handle the continuing growth. At Dulles, as you know, we are building an underground people mover; the project is on schedule, and the trains should start running in 2009. We will continue to build out our master plan, with an extension to the existing midfield terminal, and the ultimate construction of parallel midfield terminals. Those new midfield terminals are still off in the future, but I am confident they will be built sooner than anyone now expects.

At Reagan National, we are scrambling to build additional parking capacity to accommodate passenger growth caused by flights added over the last several years. As you may know, our garages are often full on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.

Traffic has been growing steadily at Reagan National, at 18.5 million for the last 12 months, up 2.4 percent over the same period last year. At Dulles, there has been a decline for the same 12-month period, still reflecting the sudden demise of Independence Air, but Dulles has nearly fully recovered: the month of March 2007 showed 13.7 percent growth over March 2006. Our anticipation is that the number of Dulles passengers will continue to grow smartly. Total passengers for the 12-month period were 23.6 million.

More interesting than the numbers are the new services being introduced at Dulles. Thus far in 2007, we have new daily services to Beijing, Rome, and Huntsville, and additional flights to Seoul and London . As the year goes on, we will have new services to Madrid, City, Doha, Dublin, Rio de Janeiro, and Oklahoma City . Flights to Addis Ababa will double, to 4 per week. Washington 's air service is matching its significance as a world-class capital city.

Mr. Chairman, it is just over twenty years since the Congress agreed to turn over Dulles and National, the Metropolitan Washington Airports, to the independent Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority. In my opinion, this has proven a most wise and beneficial decision. I look forward to continuing the Authority's excellent record as we face the future, dealing with an ever-changing aviation world.

Thank you for considering my renomination to the Board of the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority. I will be happy to answer any questions.