President Trump announced an overhaul of Washington Dulles airport on Tuesday. While short on details, the Department of Transportation will be taking bids to overhaul the airport’s mobile lounges. A bill in Congress would rename the airport for Trump.
Oddly, Trump’s recent nominee to serve on the airport authority board told the Senate in November that he would work to do away with the people mover’s if he’s confirmed. It’s not clear that the airport board was aware of any federal government plans to renovate the airport. They had no comment on the President’s announcement. It certainly appears he did not tell them first.
Why Dulles Is So Dated
United’s Washington Dulles hub has been on the chopping block many times over the past 25 years. As a result, it’s a place that’s seen little investment.
Washington Dulles built the C/D concourse that United primarily operates out of in the 1980s as a temporary facility, intended eventually to be replaced. When the airport built its AeroTrain between concourses, which went into service 15 years ago, a stop was made where a future concourse was intended to go – not where passengers have actually been flying from on United. So for the past 15 years they’ve had long walks.
These 1980s temporary sheds continue to be used because United wouldn’t invest in their replacement. In fact, significant funds have been transferred from National airport to Dulles to keep Dulles costs low and subsidize United.
It looks like Scott Kirby could get a strong return on his flattery of the President and the airline’s $1 million donation to the inauguration.
Passengers Are Still Transported To Concourses By Mobile Lounge
One of the unique features of Washington Dulles airport is that, despite building an expensive train system, they still use “mobile lounges” to ferry passengers across the airport from their D concourse and to bring passengers from some international flights directly to customs and immigration. These people movers were built in the 1960s.
These are no longer being built, since virtually no one else uses them any longer, and the manufacturer no longer supports them. Refurbishments cost about $8 million apiece.
Each one is named for a U.S. state. Each lounge needed a clear way to be called and tracked by operations and by passengers. Rather than numbering them (which could create confusion with gate numbers, concourses, or flights), the airport chose U.S. state names. That gave each vehicle a distinctive, easily remembered identity: “Board the Maryland” or “The Wyoming is headed to Gate 23.” It also reflected the airport’s status as a new national gateway for Washington, D.C. — symbolically connecting the states to the nation’s capital.
The fleet consists of 19 Mobile Lounges and 30 Plane Mates, and all remain in use today. There are 49 lounges but 50 states. None are named for Hawaii. I believe that Hawaii’s admission to the United States was known when these were ordered, but too late in the procurement cycle.
How IAD Airport Came To Be Named Dulles
Dulles airport was originally supposed to be in Burke, Virginia (chosen over Fairfax) and the federal government began buying land. However, local residents objected. So the government condemned homes and appropriated land in the predominantly African American neighborhood of Willard instead.
During development, the airport was known colloquially as “Chantilly Airport.” President Kennedy’s FAA administrator announced it would be simply, “Washington International Airport” trying to head off the naming after former Secretary of State John Foster Dulles.
However Washington Dulles International Airport opened November 17, 1962 as Dulles International Airport, dedicated by President John F. Kennedy with former President Dwight D. Eisenhower in attendance in attendance. Earlier legislation renamed Dulles International Airport to Washington Dulles International Airport, because it was being confused with Dallas.
John Foster Dulles was Eisenhower’s Secretary of State, known for brinksmanship; “agonizing reappraisal” of the United States’ commitment to European defense if European countries did not contribute more significantly to their own defense through NATO; “massive retaliation” where any act of aggression by the Soviet Union or its allies would be met with overwhelming force, including the use of nuclear weapons; and “unleashing” Chiang Kai-shek to resume military operations against the Communist People’s Republic of China to retake the mainland.
His younger brother Allan Welsh Dulles was CIA Director from 1953 through 1961, and oversaw the overthrow of Iranian Prime Minister Mossadegh in 1953 and Guatemalan President Jacobo Árbenz in 1954. He was also responsible for the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961.
United actually has a growth plan at Dulles a significant one.
And the wmaa also has a long range growth plan
Metro just Ran a new line to the airport.
Dulles isn’t going anywhere
Oh no. Ridiculous. Mobile lounges transformed into Sultan’s Carriages. Doesn’t he have other things to worry about?
maybe AA passengers at DCA won’t have to fund United IAD infrastructure for once