A 230% increase in passengers — to 90 million per year — is planned for Dulles International Airport later toward the end of the 21st century.
That aspirational figure was contained in the new master plan for the airport, approved Wednesday (July 16) by the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA) board of directors.
The document, which now goes to the Federal Aviation Administration for review and “concurrence,” details current expansion plans more than a half-century into the future.
“We don’t have a [final] year, but it’s in the 2080 time frame,” MWAA Engineering Deputy Vice President Keith Autry said.
When briefing the MWAA board, Autry noted that the plan represents a “road map,” rather than a fixed-in-concrete guide.
“We built in flexibility. Who knows what the future holds?” Thorn Pozen, a D.C. representative who chairs the MWAA board, added.
Pozen said the new master plan for Dulles, the first in 40 years, marked a major milestone.
“For us on the board, this is really a legacy moment, a proud moment,” he said.
Work on the new master plan began before Covid, was delayed during the pandemic and then restarted. Its proposals and projections have been impacted by other factors, including the opening of Metro’s Silver Line station, United Airlines’ plans for further expansion at Dulles and the signing of a new master agreement with most airlines using the facility through 2039.
“There have been a lot of changes that have taken place as we worked through the details,” said Mark Uncapher, an MWAA board member from Maryland, who chairs the body’s finance committee.
Kate Hanley, a former chair of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors and currently a Virginia representative to the MWAA board, said the final 700-page document represented an achievement.
So, too, did the efforts put into its development, Hanley said, terming it “an incredibly useful process.”
According to MWAA, Dulles has rebounded from Covid, with United’s growth and major increases in international travel fueling a boom.
During a record-setting 2024, Dulles handled about 27 million passengers through 130 aircraft gates, including 79 for United and 51 for other airlines.
Projections for the future include:
- 2040: 38 million passengers, 154 gates (93 for United, 61 for other airlines)
- 2045: 45 million passengers, no changes to gates
- 2080-2090 (estimated): 90 million passengers, 218 gates
The master plan also calls for economic development efforts within the airport’s main footprint adjacent to Autopilot Drive, including mixed-use office and retail as well as hotel and entertainment venues. On the periphery of the grounds, there are plans for light industrial development, potentially including data centers.
The plan calls for a fifth runway, but Autry said decisions, including on timing, “will depend on future growth and airport demands.”
The proposal also sketches out the order in which terminals will be developed, redeveloped and razed, and an extension of AeroTrain service to a new Concourse F. Slated to be in place by 2040, that concourse will expand on the Concourse E for United Airlines that’s currently under construction and expected to open in late 2026.
Plans are included for improvements to general aviation facilities, parking and the road network though the airport.
The vote forwarding the master plan to the FAA came just weeks after MWAA successfully sold $714 million in capital bonds.
About $410 million of the sale will support new projects, with the remainder used to refinance existing debt from 2015.
Bids totaling $4.8 billion were made on the debt. Competition for the June 5 sale was “very robust,” Mary Helou, the authority’s debt manager, said.
The final average interest rate for the bonds worked out to 4.88%, which suggested the offering was “very well-received,” Helou said.
Pozen said that given market volatility all year, there had been no guarantee that would have been the case.
“It could have gone another way,” he said.
In the lead-up to the debt offering, MWAA retained its existing ratings from the three major bond-rating houses, garnering AA-minus from Fitch and S&P Global and the equivalent Aa3 from Moody’s.
Each came with an outlook of “stable,” and while noting the increasing debt level at MWAA, rating houses said the debt load remained manageable.
Closing on the debt sale occurred July 10. The new bonds were offered with terms ranging as far out as 2050.
