Officials at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport are about to undertake a major project: reconstructing DCA’s main runway and repaving a secondary runway, all while keeping air traffic running during the day.

Crews will work overnight, closing one runway at a time from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. Flights that come in after 10 p.m. will be redirected to an alternate runway.

Workers will start with building an asphalt plant on the south end of the airport property and go to work on re-building the secondary runway, 15-33, with work happening from April 17-30. They’ll replace one section each night until they finish the entire runway.

Then in May, they’ll shift focus to DCA’s main runway, 1-19, with work happening through mid-October. Overnight flights may follow different flight path approaches, depending on wind and weather, as they use the other runway.

“We need to open that (main runway) up every day and keep that available,” Roger Natsuhara, MWAA’s Senior Vice President and Chief Engineer and Development Officer said at Wednesday’s Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority Meeting. ” This is a real challenging project for us.”

Officials have been working on it for three years, planning and testing to monitor the condition of the pavement.

“That’s what led us to do a full rebuild of this runway,” he said.

The work includes milling down eight inches of material and then repaving with asphalt.

Work will take a break in the winter, since crews can only work when it’s above 40 degrees, and then restart again from April to November 2024.

The airport last rebuilt its runways in 2011.

MWAA CEO Jack Potter noted it’s a bit more difficult to do the work at National compared to Dulles International Airport.

“(At Dulles) you shut one runway down and you have three others,” he said. “So that’s the problem – you got to do this at night and you got to get it open for the daytime.”

Board members had questions about what happens if crews don’t get done in time in the morning. Officials say they are confident they won’t have problems. They’ve made plans to make their own asphalt plant on-site to make sure the quality and quantity needed are available. They’re also planning on having extra paving equipment and a back up plan for asphalt in case things go wrong.

“The team has really done a really terrific job of trying to identify all the contingencies,” Natsuhara said.

The work is also starting on the less important runway to make sure the operation is running smoothly before moving on to the main runway. DCA’s third runway, 4-22, doesn’t get used often because it’s too small for commercial flights.

Airlines have largely moved flights before 10 p.m. to accommodate the work, according to airport officials. One board member questioned why the airport can’t do that all the time to prevent noise in neighborhoods.

“I’d say the demand is there that warrants those flights,” Potter said. “So it is something that’s been discussed historically, but it’s not in the best economic interests of the airport shut down.”

Airport officials say they will have more details on the project and passenger impacts in March.