The mobile lounges — also known as people movers — at Dulles International Airport could be around for a while. Thomas Beatty, chief operations officer for the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, said in a September 17 board of directors meeting that the people movers will remain essential to Dulles operations for 15 to 20 years, FFXNow reported.
The mobile lounges serve to transport people throughout the airport grounds. They’ve been around since the 1960s as part of Dulles’ original design. There are 19 of the original mobile lounges, built in 1962, which can carry more than 100 passengers. Thirty vehicles of a similar model, Plane Mates, date back to 1971.
The mobile lounges are less central to airport transportation since the Aerotrain opened in 2010. With top speeds of 42 miles per hour, the Aerotrain is faster and more efficient than the lounges, but it does not reach concourse D.
MWAA announced in 2023 that it planned to renovate the fleet of mobile lounges — a challenge, as the original manufacturer no longer support them. MWAA hired a Pennsylvania company to analyze and reengineer one mobile lounge and one Plane Mate over a three-year time period, to determine if it will renovate the entire fleet. If all vehicles are rehabilitated, it will cost up to $160 million, according to FFXNow.
Dulles is in the midst of several large changes, including the construction of the new Concourse E. It also unveiled its new master plan, which outlines several decades of growth at the airport. Included in those long-term plans were measures to expand the Aerotrain to reach all concourses, which could make the mobile lounges obsolete, Axios reported.
But in the meantime, Beatty said that maintaining the fleet is an important part of upholding Dulles’ operations.
Feature image courtesy MWAA
