Dulles International Airport – Main Terminal Upgrades – Main Terminal Aerotrain Station Washington, DC With its striking roofline that gracefully swoops up from the landscape, Eero Saarinen’s landmarked Washington Dulles International Airport terminal is considered to be one of the finest examples of modern architecture. SOM more than doubled the narrow structure’s length, adding 300 feet onto each end, with a design that respects the 1962-vintage building and helps integrate previous additions. In the new spaces, SOM replicated the distinctive catenary structure as well as the concrete finishes, windows, and terrazzo floors. Below grade, its expansion carved out space for a new automated baggage-handling facilities. Construction proceeded in phases to allow the facility to remain open during the project. When completed in 1997, the expansion nearly tripled the airports passenger handling capacity to 40 million a year. Active at Dulles since 1985, SOM has designed a master plan that includes six midfield concourses, a new international arrivals hall, and main terminal station for a new people-mover network.
Main Terminal Dulles's iconic main terminal houses ticketing, baggage claim, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, an international arrivals building for passenger processing, the Z gates, information facilities and other support facilities. The terminal was recognized by the American Institute of Architects in 1966 for its design concept; its roof is a suspended catenary providing a wide enclosed area unimpeded by any columns. The main terminal was extended in 1996 to 1,240 feet. Saarinen's original design length which was slightly more than double its originally constructed length of 600 feet. In addition, an extension for international arrivals was added to the west of the main terminal
in 1991. On September 22, 2009, an expansion of the international arrivals building opened which includes a 41,400 square feet arrival hall for customs and immigration processing. The new facility has the capacity to process 2,400 arriving passengers per hour. Also in September 2009, a 121,700 square feet (11,310 m2) central security checkpoint was added on a new security mezzanine level of the main terminal. This checkpoint replaced previous checkpoints which were located behind the ticketing areas,however, travellers enrolled in TSA PreCheck and CLEAR still use this area to clear security. A separate security checkpoint is available on the baggage claim level. Both security checkpoints connect to the
AeroTrain, which links the main terminal with the A, B, and C concourses. There are two sets of gates in the main terminal: the first is the "H" Gates, which are waiting areas for airlines which lack permanent physical jetbridges and therefore use plane mates to reach planes parked at 16 hard-stand locations. The other is a set of four gates with jetbridges that are designated as Concourse Z, which provides service for Air Canada Express and Frontier Airlines.
History Washington Dulles International Airport is an international airport located in Loudoun and Fairfax counties in Virginia, 26 miles west of downtown Washington, D.C.. Opened in 1962, it is named after John Foster Dulles the 52nd Secretary of State who served under President Dwight D. Eisenhower. The Dulles main terminal is a well-known landmark designed by Eero Saarinen. Operated by the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, Dulles Airport occupies 13,000 acres straddling the Loudoun-Fairfax line. Most of the airport is in the unincorporated community of Dulles in Loudoun County, with a small portion in the unincorporated community of Chantilly in Fairfax County. The airport serves the Washington metropolitan area.despite being a larger facility with more gates.
Design & Construction Dulles is one of the three major airports in the larger Baltimore– Washington metropolitan area with more than 24 million passengers a year. Dulles has the most international passenger traffic of any airport in the Mid-Atlantic outside the New York metropolitan area, including approximately 90% of the international passenger traffic in the Baltimore-Washington region. On a typical day, more than 60,000 passengers pass through Dulles to and from more than 125 destinations around the world. Dulles Airport in 2018 surpassed Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA) in yearly passenger boardings after having fewer passengers ever since 2015. However, Dulles Airport still ranks behind Baltimore– Washington International Airport (BWI) in total annual passenger boardings, despite being a larger facility with more gates.
The civil engineering firm Ammann and Whitney was named lead contractor. The airport was dedicated by President John F. Kennedy and Eisenhower on November 17, 1962. As originally opened, the airport had three runways. Its original name, Dulles International Airport, was changed in 1984 to Washington Dulles International Airport. The main terminal was designed in 1958 by famed FinnishAmerican architect Eero Saarinen, and it is highly regarded for its graceful beauty, suggestive of flight. In the 1990s, the main terminal at Dulles was reconfigured to allow more space between the front of the building and the ticket counters. Additions at both ends of the main terminal more than doubled the structure's length. The original terminal at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport in Taoyuan, Taiwan was modeled after the Saarinen terminal at Dulles.
Design & Construction The civil engineering firm Ammann and Whitney was named lead contractor. The airport was dedicated by President John F. Kennedy and Eisenhower on November 17, 1962. As originally opened, the airport had three runways. Its original name, Dulles International Airport, was changed in 1984 to Washington Dulles International Airport. The main terminal was designed in 1958 by famed FinnishAmerican architect Eero Saarinen, and it is highly regarded for its graceful beauty, suggestive of flight. In the 1990s, the main terminal at Dulles was reconfigured to allow more space between the front of the building and the ticket counters. Additions at both ends of the main terminal more than doubled the structure's length. The original
terminal at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport in Taoyuan, Taiwan was modeled after the Saarinen terminal at Dulles. The design included a landscaped man-made lake to collect rainwater, a low-rise hotel, and a row of office buildings along the north side of the main parking lot. The design also included a twolevel road in front of the terminal to separate arrival and departure traffic and a federally owned limited access highway connecting the terminal to the Capital Beltway (I-495) about 17 miles to the east. Eventually, the highway system grew to include a parallel toll road to handle commuter traffic and an extension to connect to I-66). The access road had a wide median strip to allow the construction of a passenger rail line, which will be in the form of an extension of the Washington Metro's Silver Line and is expected to be completed in 2020.
Inter-Terminal Transportation Conceived in early planning sessions in 1959, Dulles is one of the few remaining airports to use the mobile lounge (also known as "plane mates" or "people movers") now only used for transport to the International Arrivals Building as well as transport for Concourse D. They have all been given names based on the postal abbreviations of 50 states. The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority has gradually phased out the mobile lounge system for inter-terminal passenger movements in favor of the AeroTrain, an underground people mover which currently operates to all of the concourses except Concourse D, with passenger tunnels remaining to concourses A and B. Plane mates remain in use to disembark international
passengers and carry them to the International Arrivals Building, as well as to convey passengers to and from aircraft on hard stand (i.e., those parked remotely on the apron without access to jet bridges) When it opened in 1962, Washington Dulles International Airport was the first airport in the United States designed for commercial jet aircraft. Eero Saarinen created a fleet of ‘mobile lounges’ to transport passengers from the compact terminal to remotely parked planes. Due to changing security needs and a growing volume of travelers, the lounges became inefficient. In turn, SOM conceived a people mover system that provides rail and pedestrian links between the main terminal and midfield concourses. To preserve sight lines and keep Saarinen’s landmark building intact, the main station is located entirely underground. A faceted roof structure supported by 105-foot-long concrete beams contains
Inter-Terminal Transportation Conceived in early planning sessions in 1959, Dulles is one of the few remaining airports to use the mobile lounge (also known as "plane mates" or "people movers") now only used for transport to the International Arrivals Building as well as transport for Concourse D. They have all been given names based on the postal abbreviations of 50 states. The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority has gradually phased out the mobile lounge system for inter-terminal passenger movements in favor of the AeroTrain, an underground people mover which currently operates to all of the concourses except Concourse D, with passenger tunnels remaining to concourses A and B. Plane mates remain in use to disembark international passengers and carry them to the International Arrivals Building, as well as to convey passengers to and from aircraft on hard stand (i.e., those parked remotely on the apron without access to
When it opened in 1962, Washington Dulles International Airport was the first airport in the United States designed for commercial jet aircraft. Eero Saarinen created a fleet of ‘mobile lounges’ to transport passengers from the compact terminal to remotely parked planes. Due to changing security needs and a growing volume of travelers, the lounges became inefficient. In turn, SOM conceived a people mover system that provides rail and pedestrian links between the main terminal and midfield concourses. To preserve sight lines and keep Saarinen’s landmark building intact, the main station is located entirely underground. A faceted roof structure supported by 105-foot-long concrete beams contains numerous skylights and luminous panels, which bathe the subterranean space in daylight. The is envisioned as a single folded plan floating between concrete walls, with a terrazo surface similar to the flooring in the iconic terminal above.