President Donald Trump on Tuesday said that his administration would “rebuild” Dulles International Airport, pledging to make major changes to the 63-year-old airport.
“It’s not a good airport. It should be a great airport,” the president said in a Cabinet meeting, claiming that his administration had an “amazing plan” to overhaul the facility.
Dulles is already undergoing a massive transformation aimed at modernizing the airport, launched in 2023. One of the centerpieces of the multibillion-dollar program is a 14-gate, 400,000-square-foot concourse. The three-level space, the size of three football fields, is expected to be completed next year.
Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy also said that his agency on Tuesday would announce a request for bids related to overhauling Dulles, singling out its “people movers,” the airport’s signature shuttles that carry passengers around the facility. The shuttles, which the airport refers to as “mobile lounges,” were involved in two accidents last month, drawing national attention and renewing questions about how the airport transports its passengers. Dulles officials have said that they plan to continue using the shuttles for at least 15 more years.
The White House and the Transportation Department did not immediately respond to questions about the administration’s plans for Dulles.
The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, which oversees Dulles, did not have an immediate comment.
The Trump administration’s interest in changes to Dulles has grown in recent weeks, following the Nov. 10 mobile lounge crash that led to the hospitalization of 18 people, although officials said that no one was seriously injured. About a week after that crash, a United Airlines employee suffered minor injuries when another shuttle collided with a baggage cart.
Trent Morse, a former White House official who Trump nominated to serve on the MWAA board, told the Senate last month that he would pursue efforts to do away with the “people movers” if confirmed. In an interview with The Washington Post, Morse said he would seek to make other changes to Dulles, such as studying recent overhauls of New York’s LaGuardia and John F. Kennedy International airports as road maps for how a private-public partnership could use a mix of funding to redevelop Dulles.
“There’s no reason we can’t do that at Dulles and build out this world-class facility,” Morse said in the interview.
In his Cabinet meeting, Trump praised Dulles’s original architect, Eero Saarinen, and said that he had constructed a “beautiful terminal” that was poorly served by the rest of the facility. Spanning over a million square feet, it’s the biggest airport in the D.C. region.
“They have a great building and a bad airport,” Trump said.
Dulles has suffered for decades with concourses that were supposed to be temporary. But the “people movers” were part of the original design, allowing for long runways without forcing passengers to walk long distances. While a rail system was added in 2010, it doesn’t serve every concourse. MWAA two years ago signed a contract to upgrade the fleet, saying they would remain necessary for years and maybe decades.
Several Republicans have introduced legislation to rename the airport, which was named in honor of former secretary of state John Foster Dulles, in honor of Trump.
Ian Duncan contributed to this report.
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