Washington National airport built an entire new concourse to replace one miserable gate. Gate 35X was a bus gate that served 14 remote stands for 50 seat regional jets. The new regional concourse supports 14 large regional jets. There’s a gorgeous Admirals Club in that concourse, too.
The new concourse was part of the 10-figure “Project Journey” which moved security screening so that all of the concourses and “National Hall” would be airside. Now passengers enter the terminal, go downstairs to clear security, and go back upstairs.
Gate 35X was originally gate 35A, the US Airways express gates, back in 1997. It actually remained 35A up until US Airways management took over American. It was renamed in 2014.
Former American Airlines CEO Doug Parker said that he’d hear “about [the gate] a lot” in the form of complaints from Congressmen who live in small communities and were stuck using that gate all the time.
The new concourse is now nearly two years old. But instead of spending a billion dollars, US Airways killed the idea of a new regional jet concourse 25 years ago – that was supposed to cost just $16 million. We’d have been rid of gate 35X twenty five years earlier.
I’ve just learned something new! I lived in Northern Virginia from 1996 to 2014, but somehow didn’t recall plans for a nine gate regional concourse that didn’t get built.
The regional concourse, which MWAA officials described as aesthetically “distinguishable in its own right, but complementary to Terminal B/C,” would have been a 9-gate remote terminal connected by bus to — you guessed it — Gate 35A, later 35X. pic.twitter.com/LwJ8jXBPvr
— Edward Russell (@ByERussell) January 9, 2023
US Airways Chairman and CEO at the time, Stephen Wolf, is cited as supporting the regional concourse project in MWAA board minutes from April 1998. The concourse was budgeted to cost $16.2 million, and scheduled to open in 2000. pic.twitter.com/ara6NsnIQW
— Edward Russell (@ByERussell) January 9, 2023
Why was the regional concourse built? We got stuck with 35X for another 25 years because, it was claimed, passengers liked the 1997-new B/C terminal and wouldn’t like a regional concourse that wasn’t as nice. However the new regional concourse was also being built for smaller regional aircraft, rather than 70-76 seaters that are becoming more common today.
You’re not supposed to speak ill of the dead, so the best we can say about American’s Gate 35X is that it brought together the likes of Robert Mueller and Donald Trump, Jr. and no matter how powerful the politician they were all brought back down to earth by 35X.
Here’s a haiku about Washington National’s gate 35X though I would remove the second ‘very’ from the second line in order to give it seven syllables.
I’m so bored that I wrote a haiku about National Airport.
It’s my first poem in 42 years, so please, be kind:Gate 35-X
I hate it so very much
Crowded. Awful. Sad.— Steven Bennett (@steven_bennett2) January 8, 2018
American Airlines got to keep the sign for old gate 35X. After the escalator downstairs was closed, the sign was stored in the Piedmont Airlines office and then picked up by American Airlines government affairs.
Security at National airport is at the same level as plane departures (no going back upstairs after clearing security).
“You’re not supposed to speak ill of the dead, so the best we can say about American’s Gate 35X is that it brought together the likes of Robert Mueller and Donald Trump, Jr. and no matter how powerful the politician they were all brought back down to earth by 35X.”
Gee, Gary, you’ve posted a number of times on Gate 35X and make taking the down escalator there sound like going to Sheol.
“I hate it so very very much”
I know what Benett was trying to do there (count very as one syllable) but that dog won’t hunt and that haiku won’t fly, lol
That awful gate at DCA now gone reminds me of one similar at LGA, except it wasn’t used to bus passengers to parked planes. It existed in one of the fingers of the old Central Terminal Building, where United and Air Canada operated from. It was concourse B. There was a basement gate that UA Express used for CLE and IAD and it was essentially a staff break room converted to a gate, with windows, and smelled of jet blast. It was accessed through a fire escape type stair well on the ground floor of that wing of the CTB.
The only thing worse than the gate were the US employees working the gate. They were barking sheep dogs at a livestock auction.
The bus setup was bad, but it worked. A couple weeks ago I was on an RJ that waited a good 45 minutes for a gate at the new terminal. A while in, just to get a rise out of folks, I somewhat loudly exclaimed “At 35X, we’d have been home by now!”. Lots of groaning.
I recall getting on that damn bus one windy 0F degree morning. Bus driver shut off the bus (and any heat), left the bus door open, and went inside to get warm leaving us passengers freezing.
Good times with American Airlines.