Dulles International Airport is counting down to the planned opening of the new 14-gate Concourse E serving United Airlines, but the count will run a little longer than initially hoped for.
The opening has been pushed back from late September into October but prep work is continuing as planned, the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA) board of directors was told on Wednesday (Sept. 16).
September appeared to be more of an aspirational goal than a hard and fast deadline for the 435,000-square-foot facility, which will feature more gates, 46,000 square feet of concession space, a 40,000-square-foot airline club, and an AeroTrain station.
Current operational testing is working to “fix the issues when we still have time,” said Thomas Beatty, an MWAA executive vice president who oversees operations at Dulles and Reagan National airports.
“Our team is focused on disciplined execution,” Beatty said. “Safety is always at the front of our thinking.”
Concessionaires in the new concourse are “making great headway” as the opening approaches, said Chryssa Westerlund, another MWAA executive vice president and the authority’s chief revenue officer.
The concourse will host nearly 20 new shops and restaurants, along with one of United’s largest club facilities in the U.S.
Beatty said that, while the concourse is new, the expectation is for a seamless transition into the overall Dulles footprint.
From opening day, the $700 million new facility “should operate like it has been part of Dulles all along,” Beatty told board members.
The 14-gate piece of is just a portion of the ultimate Concourse E buildout. Work on the final half of the concourse and future projects is “no longer just a conceptual vision,” but is now underway, said Jeremy Meltzer, MWAA’s recently appointed chief of staff.
Meltzer also updated board members on the planned $22 billion overhaul and expansion of Dulles. Prodded by the Trump administration, MWAA and United unveiled a long-term plan last month that will include new facilities and a phase-out of the mobile lounges that have been a presence at Dulles since its 1962 opening.
At the Sept. 16 meeting, MWAA CEO Jack Potter filled in some of the financial details, confirming that the authority will seek federal funds to help defray the costs involved.
“We are going to seek federal dollars,” he said. “We’re going to take all the help we can get, but at the current time, there are no federal dollars.”
There is reason to be optimistic, as the authority received about $187.4 million in federal funds to support construction of Concourse E.
The MWAA and United plan calls for issuing bonds to cover most construction costs. Those bonds would be paid by higher operating charges passed down to airlines that use the airport.
That will result in a cost-per-enplanement increase from less than $13 today to between $60 and $65 in the future, a figure MWAA officials say is acceptable to existing carriers but could present hurdles in marketing the airport to potential future airline tenants.
On the other hand, a modernized airport could become a magnet for new service, if the result is “transformational,” as predicted by MWAA board chair Mark Uncapher at the Sept. 16 meeting.
All the proposed new facilities will require higher passenger counts, and recently, airport officials traveled to Africa in an effort to solicit future opportunities.
“We’re always looking for the next new service,” said Paul Bobson, MWAA’s vice president for airline business development.
A current focus is on Nairobi, Kenya, which earlier this month played host to the 2026 Aviation Africa conference attended by Bobson and a colleague.
Nairobi currently is the largest African city without direct service to the D.C. area, and the Washington region is its largest unserved market, Bobson said.
