Aviation watchdog JonNYC shared an internal United Airlines presentation about new lounges at Houston Intercontinental and Washington Dulles airports and how it’s investing in its different hubs.
— JonNYC (@xJonNYC) April 1, 2026
United, I think, would frame this as its future edge coming from making the physical plant at its hubs match the network and fleet it wants to run. The lounge renderings are a big part of that, but it’s gates, baggage systems, rail access, and higher-gauge flying.
Preparing For A Return To New York JFK
They’re expecting to get back into New York JFK through their JetBlue partnership which initially gives them access to seven takeoff and seven landing slots a day starting in 2027. So they’re working now to prepare for this, “looking at gates, lounge and maintenance facilities.”
Disgraced former United CEO Jeff Smisek walked away from JFK because he thought those flights lost money, but he didn’t understand how it would cost United business on the West Coast and with corporate contracts, because those customers didn’t want to fly to Newark. And it cost them significantly with their co-brand credit card performance, because it shed cardmember spend on one side of the river.
United Is Building Two Of The World’s Largest Lounges
United will open its largest club – at 55,000 square feet – in Houston.
Houston Intercontinental sees a 40-gate Terminal B program a 765,000-square-foot North Concourse with 22 narrowbody-equivalent gates, a South Concourse conversion from 30 old 50-seat-regional gates to 18 E175 gates, expanded ticketing/security/baggage, and this United Club.
And they will occupy the new Washington Dulles 14-gate E concourse that opens this fall. It’ll feature a 40,000-square foot United Club (that JonNYC says will have 650 seats), and it’s above the airport train rather than a long walk from it like the 45-year old temporary C/D concourse United also operates from.
Credit: Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority
Credit: Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority
At the time the United Club for the Washington Dulles E Concourse was announced about a year and a half ago, it was supposed to be the largest United Club. Houston’s will be about 40% larger than that!
And I believe these will become the seventh and ninth largest airport lounges in the world, although some of this depends on how you split up or draw a circle around a given lounge (for instance the Singapore Airlines Changi terminal 3 premium lounge complex is about 65,000 square feet but I don’t count it because it’s made up of several different lounges with different access rules).
Feel free to correct me on this, nonetheless. What lounges am I missing?
- Emirates Business Class Lounge, Dubai (DXB) Concourse A is approximately 177,960 sq ft
- Emirates First Class Lounge, Dubai (DXB) Concourse A approximately 133,774 sq ft
- Qatar Airways Al Mourjan Business Lounge, Doha (DOH) 107,639 sq ft
- Qatar Airways Al Mourjan Business Lounge – The Garden, Doha (DOH) 79,545 sq ft
- Turkish Airlines Lounge Business, Istanbul (IST) 60,278 sq ft
- Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles Lounge, Istanbul (IST) 60,278 sq ft
- United Airlines New Houston Club (IHA) 55,000 sq ft (forthcoming)
- LATAM Lounge, Santiago (SCL) 43,056 sq ft
- United Airlines Washington Dulles Concourse E Club (IAD) 40,000 sq ft
- Delta One Lounge, New York JFK (JFK) 39,707 sq ft.
Etihad’s Abu Dhabi business class lounge is clearly somewhere on this list, but I don’t know the actual square footage.
The Emirates Dubai Concourse A first and business-class lounges are two different levels of the same space and are a combined incredible 312,153 sq ft. The first class lounge is surreal because there are often more buffets and restaurants than there are passengers at a given time.
I’ve called it the Night of the Comet lounge because it’s as though a neutron bomb went off, all of the people disappeared, but the infrastructure of the entire world remained.
Still, United’s new lounges in Houston and at Washington Dulles will be very large – larger than their refreshed Denver lounges which are physically spectacular. They’ll be a huge upgrade for airports that haven’t seen a lot of love in a long time.
United’s Hub Strategy
JonNYC passes along,
United Airlines is undertaking an ambitious, long-term transformation of its airport infrastructure, positioning itself for sustained global growth. The strategy combines large-scale capital investment, forward-looking planning, and a strong focus on customer experience.
Washington Dulles emerges as a particularly strategic hub with significant untapped potential, while Houston and Chicago anchor major expansion efforts. Across its network, United is reinforcing its competitiveness through modernization, increased capacity, and enhanced passenger services.
Despite a challenging global environment, the company remains committed to accelerating investments, reflecting confidence in long-term demand and its strategic vision to become the world’s leading airline.
Chicago O’Hare’s new concourse will open in 2028 with 22 gates, eventually leading to demolition of terminal 2 and the building of the new Global Terminal.
It’s interesting to see the FAA limiting Chicago O’Hare traffic this summer, though, putting United’s growth plans that they really didn’t want to undertake on ice – United was adding a slew of short regional jet flights in order to run up departure numbers and secure more gates at American’s expense.
But the question remains, if O’Hare can’t handle more flights than it did in 2025, what are they building all these new gates for?
San Francisco is another similar question, because the FAA is limiting parallel landing operations which will reduce capacity at the airport, but they’re undertaking modernization of Terminal 3 expected to be completed next year. (This will mean new lounge space including probably a Chase or Capital One lounge as well.
United Next is about aligning network and product with the potential of its hubs, which it often describes as ‘the best in the industry’ – United doesn’t generally dominate most of its hubs the way some other carriers do, but they’re placed in more important cities with bigger markets and bigger spend. So these are competitive places, where United is well-positioned, but where they have to be better.
The airline recently reported that fourth-quarter customer satisfaction was the highest in its history, with a seven-point improvement in check-in experience (lobby, kiosk, and app investments). That makes capital investment part of the core business and loyalty model.
On returning to JFK, yet again… “seven takeoff and seven landing slots a day starting in 2027” … LOL. Yeah, good luck with that. As far as gates/terminals, the real opening for United is new T6/7 that is supposed to partially open this year, along with the new T1, fully-completed by 2030, so still ample time. The Star Alliance ‘hub’ at JFK 6/7 would’ve been the best opening, especially since it will also connect to T5 with B6’s hub there.
Otherwise, good to see for IAD and IAH, because those need ‘help’… I do like the little breakfast burritos they got at the United Clubs down in Houston, so keep those, please. @L737, been to those ancient UnitedClubs at Dulles lately? Yeesh.
No vapor ware with UNITED rising
@1990 — The new IAD concourse and eventual replacing of the existing C/D one can’t come soon enough!
Has it occurred to anyone to consider exactly why these Oversized Airport Lounges are a good idea in the first place? Perhaps fixing airports instead might be the better long-term approach.
DELTA SUCKS
UNITED RISING
perhaps UA will add lounges at a faster pace than DL but DL still has the most square feet in its global lounge system and they are still growing.
The difference with DL is that they have built multiple lounges where UA is now building one or two massive lounges at an airport.
UA does have the benefit of having to build and rebuild its airport infrastructure and so can add big lounges from the start.
All of these lounges and all of the aircraft UA plans to take are adding mountains to UA’s expenses – lounges are often part of airport leases – but all of it has to be financed by rapidly growing revenues.
As Gary notes, the FAA is now on its 3rd iteration of limiting capacity at UA hubs – haven’t done that in any other airlines’ hubs – which says that UA is wanting to grow far beyond what the aviation system can handle and it is in the US’ best interests to not allow one carrier to throw the system out of whack.
As for UA back at JFK, there is probably a better chance that DL will add EWR to the west coast than that UA will succeed as the 4th airline on JFK to the west coast. It is far from clear that B6 really wants to allow UA into B6′ largest markets in the first place; they could very well be just stringing UA along to get revenue now.
@Denver Refugee — Speaking of “fixing airports” …any progress at, you know, DEN, lately? *plane train piano riff*
Alaska lounge at Seatac, if you count forthcoming, it would be a tie at #9.
Spectrum Boy, I know it is hard as you defend your dad’s airline and your sycophancy for Georgia Klan Air but the article is about United, not GKA in ATL. You have to turn off the sycophancy for dad’s airline. I know that is hard, given your condition, but keep trying you will get there. Also, you have to stop lying about things. The FAA has not done anything to affect UA, and UA has said it welcomes all FAA actions at EWR and ORD (where they lead AA by over 40%) the Actions at SFO during construction actually cap flights ABOVE current levels. Stop grasping kid, it does not look good with the lies. Just accept DL is #2 (some punctuation intenddd) in a market that is about #5 in quality since the US airlines are sub to their foreign counterparts anyway. Good in UA for the investment and sticking with strategy. They have a great balance sheet, labour is happy, and the future is healthy. All good kid.
@1990 – Let’s just say that Denver, like most airports, violates the design principle of minimizing the amount of time passengers need to spend in it.
Gary
I’m not sure the biz class lounge in AUH is that big, it just seems so because its spread over several floors. The FC lounge is quite small but has very few people most of the time. Great Experience.
Jim,
UA is simply NOT #1 in operational or financial metrics.
It is #1 only in size metrics.
UA has clearly prioritized quantity over quality – so very American – and the mere fact that DL makes more money flying less seat miles is evidence that UA’s strategy is not the best for anyone.
Given that UA’s very public plan is to eliminate competition in order to grow to the size – esp. in the domestic market which UA ignored for way too long – and the FAA (undoubtedly at the behest of a whole lot of other airlines) is repeatedly stepping in to stop UA’s plans, then it is very fair game to note that UA’s plans are not as concrete as you and others want to believe they are.
Per Tim’s adulation of Delta’s financial performance… and his admission that UA is bigger, UA will have Starlink on the whole fleet before Delta sees a single place with Amazon Leo, that UA is getting hundreds of planes years before Delta gets any of its recent order, etc. etc. etc…
– If you are looking to buy some airline STOCK, buy Delta’s
– If you are looking to buy some airline TICKETS, buy United’s
Tim
Delta certainly prioritizes quality. It offers (or used to offer) flights on Aeroflot via Moscow in the winter for a bargain price of around 160K Skypesos. That’s not allowed now, so it pivoted to offering flights on Saudia via SA in the summer for 500K.
And for quality airlines such as AF and VS, it charges 4-5 times what they do.
What about Alaska Airlines new lounge at SEA – 40,000 sq feet.
@Denver Refugee — I read you loud and clear. “Please stand clear of the closing doors.” *plane train piano riff*
Jon,
right now flying Aeroflot is probably safer than Emirates – which is UA’s partner.
An A380 falls pretty hard when it gets hit by an Iranian missile or drone.
You are clearly jealous that DL CAN charge as much as it does and actually has people that buy its products.
psst… I have said for years that a big reason why DL can price Skymiles awards as high as it does is because DL carries more corporate traffic than any other US airline – and perhaps any airline in the world.
When someone else pays for your tickets and you get the reward, the ability to command a high price is very different compared to airlines where a larger percentage of passengers pay for their own tickets.
UA simply is not in the same league as DL in source of revenue; Amex is simply a superior credit card and Visa will never be able to provide the same benefits.
all of your little digs now and in the future won’t change any of that.
UA thinks it can make up for what it lacks in revenue qualty by generating higher volume. Problem is that they have yet to prove that they can get their marginal costs down – which explains why their bottom line trails DL and the gap will only widen
Seems like the United Internet Defense Force talking point today is “United rising”.
Astroturfing garbage.
Tim
I flew one of the ME3 (not EK) a few days go. I would much rather fly it than Delta, let alone Aeroflot.
I think Delta can price SkyPesos as high as it can on international flights because some (note I said some, not all). delta fanboys rarely venture outside their mothers’ basements to travel abroad for pleasure. Or if they do, they don’t fly the ME3, ANA/JAL or SQ, so they actually think Delta One is a top product.
And some are functionally innumerate or limited in perception, so apparently they’re willing to pony up 450-500k (minus a slight discount for some Amex cardholders) for the same seats that VS and AF (which are top notch airlines) sell for 1/4th to 1/5th the price.
As far as Amex goes, its just a glorified coupon book now
Jon,
you are nothing but a paid sore loser.
I don’t write DL’s financial statements.
While UA was fixated on crowing about the size of its international network, DL led the industry in gaining high value revenue and there are simply some parts of DL’s structure that cannot be copied including DL’s position with the largest schedule at both LGA and JFK – both of which are the preferred airports for short and medium/longhaul corporate travel from NYC as well as LAX and BOS.
DL did a deal w/ Amex which will always be able to share more revenue with its partners than Visa or MC can. that is just a fact
I don’t really care what airlines you fly. I do care what companies do to get the most revenue which involves far more than just a few people or paid media influencers.
DL simply has access to higher value revenue than any other airline on the planet and as a result runs a better business and airline.
Tim
I don’t get paid by UA. I post here mostly because trolling delta fanboys is fun
I hear Delta might have a D1 club in ATL in 2028 if all goes well. Rising?
Jon F gets it.
The only person who is making up facts is Tim Dunn. I can’t count how many times Tim has told people to stick to facts, to keep their opinions out of their posts, and to provide evidence. Yet here he is calling Jon a paid sore loser without any proof. Put up or shut up Tim.
If you can’t stick to facts, you should take your own advice and get off the Internet.
people who spend as much time as Jon does just to troll someone are either not telling the truth or have serious mental issues.
Does Jon honestly think that what he or I wrote on social media really changes anything?
What Jon and a lot of UA ilk can’t accept is that UA really is nowhere near close to winning in anything other than sheer size and THAT is why they want desperately to shut me down.
Not going to happen.
2026 will see me take even bigger and faster victory laps than so far….
@Tim Dunn, please provide evidence that Jon has “serious mental issues.” Given how much you like to stick to facts, justify your statement or — as you have told me to do — get off the Internet.
Remember back in 2020 when you wrote: “I welcome others to hold me accountable to the standard of “is something positive being said” and would suggest that be a standard we all accept in order to create a positive commenting environment.” I’m holding you accountable. Have you said ANYTHING positive in this thread? I see insults in your last comment and its ilk …
@rebel — Yeah, lack of D1 at ATL is odd. Like, there’s Polaris at ORD, right? And, Flagship at DFW, no? You’d think HQ deserves something nice. Huh.