President Donald Trump said in a December 2 cabinet meeting that he wants to reconstruct Washington Dulles International Airport.
“We’re also going to rebuild Dulles airport because it’s not a good airport,” Trump said in the meeting. “It should be a great airport, and it’s not a good airport at all. It’s a terrible airport.”
Trump said the airport was “incorrectly designed,” though he said “it’s got a beautiful terminal” designed by Finnish American architect Eero Saarinen.
“We’re going to go ahead and turn it around and we’re going to make Dulles Airport … we’re going to make that into something really spectacular,” Trump said. “We have an amazing plan for it.”
He did not mention specific details of that plan. Trump drove through the terminal at Dulles in early November to assess future projects, The Associated Press reported.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy added that the administration is also planning to request bids to revise the airport’s people movers, or mobile lounges, which transport travelers between planes and terminals. One of those people movers crashed last month, injuring 18 passengers.
Dulles Master Plan
Dulles opened in 1962 and is owned by the federal government. It handles about 27 million passengers per year. It’s operated by the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, which also runs Reagan National Airport.
Dulles is already in the midst of some major changes, including the addition of a new concourse in 2026. In July, MWAA also unveiled a new master plan outlining how the airport would grow over the next several decades. That plan included a goal to serve 38 million passengers per year by 2040.
Early this year, Republican lawmaker Rep. Addison McDowell introduced a bill that would have renamed Dulles International Airport after Trump. The bill did not progress past the House Subcommittee on Aviation.
Feature image of Dulles International Airport, stock.adobe.com
