President Donald Trump is expected to officially unveil his sought-after plan to renovate Dulles International Airport this afternoon (Wednesday) at an Oval Office event with U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy.
A presentation of the proposal, which is expected to cost approximately $22 billion and eliminate the airport’s polarizing mobile lounges or “people movers,” was shared this spring by the newsletter Airport Architecture.
The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA), the airport’s operator, has declined to comment on it in detail, deferring to the Trump administration for a formal announcement. But MWAA President and CEO Jack Potter has expressed support for the federal push to modernize Dulles and indicated at a board meeting earlier this month that the airlines it serves are on board as well.
The airport makeover would expand a long list of renovation projects the Republican president is pursuing to leave a lasting mark on the Washington region after his term ends in January 2029. Among other undertakings, he has plans to build a new White House ballroom along with a towering triumphal arch near the Lincoln Memorial.
In place of the people movers, the airport will add a new passenger train and more moving walkways, and the parking lot will be moved closer to the main terminal, according to a White House official who shared details of the Republican president’s plan under condition of anonymity before an announcement.
The project will be financed by the airports authority and the airlines serving Dulles, the White House official said.
Trump said in December that Dulles needs to be redesigned because “it’s not a good airport.”
The president, a former real estate developer, said back then that the Dulles building was “incorrectly designed.” He nonetheless praised Eero Saarinen, the Finnish-American architect and designer of the airport’s main terminal.
“We’re going to turn that around and we’re going to make Dulles airport — serving Washington and Virginia, Maryland, etc. — we’re gonna make that into something really spectacular,” Trump said at the Cabinet meeting in December. “We have an amazing plan for it.”
Dulles has relied on people movers since it opened in 1962.
Designed by Chrysler Corp., the vehicles shuttle passengers between the terminal and aircraft. The airport operates a fleet of 19 mobile lounges, each capable of carrying up to 102 passengers, according to its website.
When Dulles debuted, the airport touted the system as a major convenience. Passengers, it said, “had to walk only 200 feet once they entered the terminal until they were seated in a mobile lounge for the short trip directly to their aircraft,” a service it described as unique to Dulles.
However, safety issues have cropped up over the years, including one crash last November that injured 18 people.
Some travelers have also bemoaned the vehicles as inconvenient and outdated with an AeroTrain now connecting the main terminal and the A and B gates. The automated train system will expand this fall with the opening of a new, 14-gate Concourse E that has been under construction since November 2023.
The new concourse is part of a master plan for Dulles Airport that the MWAA board adopted last year. Expected to guide renovations over the next 25 years, the plan anticipates that the airport will serve more than 90 million passengers annually before the end of this century.
The Trump administration had solicited a variety of “revitalization” proposals seemingly intended to replace or accelerate the upgrades envisioned by the master plan.
If the presentation shared by Airport Architecture remains accurate, the plan revealed today will target an ambitious completion date of 2034, retaining Saarinen’s distinctive design for the airport’s main terminal but renovating the interior and reconfiguring several concourses.
