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Dulles unveils expansion progress
Traveling to and from Washington Dulles International Airport will soon be a different experience once major renovations to the property are complete.Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority President James Bennett discussed the progress of the $7 billion improvement projects at Dulles and Reagan National airports during a media tour Oct. 9.
Most of the renovation is taking place at Dulles, where construction for a terminal with four separate levels for check-in, baggage claim, a train system and security checkpoints is underway.
The changes will allow the airports authority to serve an increasing number of passengers at Dulles, and for the most part the project is on schedule and on budget, Bennett said Tuesday.
“This is an investment in the future of the airport,” he said.
Passenger traffic at Dulles -- the center of a growing technology corridor and just miles outside Washington, D.C. -- is expected to increase from about 24 million travelers annually to about 35 million by 2016, according to Bennett.
Since launching the “Dulles Development” project in 2001, the authority has spent about $3 billion completing a new airport traffic control tower and a passenger walkway and renovation of the main terminal and a runway.
The authority plans to start operating AeroTrain -- an underground train system taking passengers to different concourses -- and the new levels of the main terminal at the end of 2009, according to Tara Hamilton, an MWAA spokeswoman.
The main terminal, currently two levels, will be remodeled so that the first floor will be used only as the check-in area.
Baggage claim will remain on its own level. Passengers will be screened at security check mezzanines being constructed underground, one level below the baggage claim.
Escalators between the two security mezzanines will take passengers down another level to the platform of the main AeroTrain station.
The changes should significantly cut travel time to the gates because the trains will run every three minutes and passengers who have checked in at home will be able to bypass the check-in area, according to Bennett.
Other aspects of the project include a fourth runway, which is scheduled for completion this year, and expansion of the International Arrivals Building and Concourse B.
According to Frank Holly, MWAA's vice president of engineering, the Dulles Development project is consistent with future plans for the airport, which opened in 1962 and sits on about 12,000 acres.
The airports authority has plans to use the available land and expand the airport even further if passenger growth continues in future years, Holly said. It has already obtained permits to build a fifth runway and has plans for other train stations and concourses.
“We'll keep monitoring the air traffic and go from there,” Holly said.
Contact the reporter at lwilder@timespapers.com
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