History

Origins

At the end of World War II, growth in aviation and in the Washington metropolitan area led Congress to pass the Washington Airport Act of 1950, providing federal backing for a second airport. After preliminary proposals failed, including one to establish an international airport at what is now Burke Lake Park, the current site was selected by President Dwight Eisenhower in 1958. As a result of the selection, the unincorporated community of Willard, which once stood in the airport's current footprint, was demolished.

Design and original construction View of IAD from an airplane

The civil engineering firm Ammann and Whitney was named lead contractor. The airport was dedicated by President John F. Kennedy on November 17, 1962. Its original name, Dulles International Airport, was changed in 1984 to Washington Dulles International Airport. The main terminal was designed in 1958 by famed Finnish 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 two-level 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 (27 km) 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 and is expected to be completed in 2018.

Notable operations and milestones The first flight at Dulles was an Eastern Air Lines Super Electra turboprop arriving from Newark International Airport in New Jersey on November 19, 1962. Dulles was initially considered a white elephant, being far out of town with few flights; in 1965 Dulles averaged 89 airline operations a day while DCA averaged 600 despite not allowing jets. (Dulles got its first transatlantic nonstop in June 1964.) Airport operations grew along with Virginia suburbs and the Dulles Technology Corridor; perimeter and slot restrictions at Washington National Airport forced long-distance flights to use Dulles. In 1969 Dulles had 2.01 million passengers while National had 9.9 million. The era of jumbo jets began on January 15, 1970 when First Lady Pat Nixon christened a Pan Am Boeing 747 at Dulles in the presence of Pan Am chairman Najeeb Halaby. Rather than a traditional champagne bottle, red, white, and blue water was sprayed on the aircraft. Pan Am's first Boeing 747 flight was Dulles to London Heathrow. On May 24, 1976 supersonic flights between Dulles and Europe began with the arrival of a British Airways Concorde from London and an Air France Concorde from Paris. The two were lined nose-to-nose at Dulles for photos. On June 12, 1983 the Space Shuttle Enterprise arrived at Dulles mounted on top of a modified Boeing 747 after touring Europe and before returning to Edwards AFB. Two years later Enterprise returned and was placed in a storage hangar near Runway 12/30 to await the construction of a planned expansion to the National Air and Space Museum. Enterprise left Dulles on April 27, 2012, for its new home at the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum in New York City. Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center In 1990 a United States Senate joint resolution to change the name of Washington Dulles to Washington Eisenhower was proposed by Senator Dole, but never passed. When the SR-71 was retired by the military in 1990, one was flown from its birthplace at United States Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, California to Dulles, setting a coast-to-coast speed record at an average 2,124 mph (3,418 km/h). The trip took 64 minutes. The aircraft was placed in a storage building to await display. The first flight of the Boeing 777 in commercial service, a United Airlines flight from London Heathrow, landed at Dulles in 1995. Air France operates daily, year-round flights on the Airbus A380 from Washington-Dulles to Paris out of gate A20/A22. In December 2003, the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum opened the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center at Dulles. The museum annex houses an Air France Concorde; the Enola Gay B-29; the Space Shuttle Discovery; the Boeing 367–80, which was the prototype of the Boeing 707; the SR-71; and other famous aerospace artifacts, particularly those too large for the main building on the National Mall. The 2004 launch of low-cost carrier Independence Air propelled IAD from being the 24th-busiest airport in the United States to fourth, and one of the top 30 busiest in the world. Independence Air ceased operations in January 2006, and its space in Concourse A was taken five months later by United Express. Southwest Airlines began service at Dulles in fall 2006. In 2007, 24.7 million passengers passed through the airport. On June 6, 2011 Air France began Airbus A380 flights from Paris Charles de Gaulle airport to Washington Dulles. On April 17, 2012 the Space Shuttle Discovery was ferried to Dulles mounted to a NASA 747-100 as part of its decommissioning and installation in the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center. On June 1, 2012 the first passenger flight of the Boeing 747-8 Intercontinental landed as Lufthansa Flight 416 from Frankfurt. On August 15, 2012, Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 787 Dreamliner arrives at Dulles. Planned development Main Terminal Station of Aerotrain

Since the 1980s, the original design, which had mobile lounges meet each plane, was not well-suited to Dulles' role as a hub airport. Instead, midfield concourses were added to allow passengers to walk between connecting flights without visiting the main terminal. Mobile lounges were still used for international flights and to transport passengers between the midfield concourses and the main terminal. An underground tunnel (consisting of a passenger walkway and moving sidewalks) which links the main terminal and concourse B was opened in 2004. The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA) began a renovation program for the airport including a new security mezzanine with more room for lines.

A new train system, dubbed AeroTrain and developed by Mitsubishi, began in 2010 to transport passengers between the concourses and the main terminal. The system, which uses rubber tires and travels along a fixed underground guideway, is similar to the people mover systems at Singapore Changi Airport, Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport, and Denver International Airport. The train is intended to replace the mobile lounges, which many passengers found crowded and inconvenient. The initial phase includes the main terminal station, a permanent Concourse A station, a permanent Concourse B station, a permanent midfield concourse station (with access to the current temporary C concourse via a tunnel with moving walkways), and a maintenance facility. Mobile lounges continue to service the D Concourse from both the main terminal and the A Concourse. Mobile lounges will continue to transport international arrivals to the IAB facility. Dulles has stated that the wait time for a train does not exceed four minutes, compared to the average 15-minute wait and travel time for mobile lounges.

Under the development plan, future phases would see the addition of several new midfield concourses and a new south terminal. A fourth runway (parallel to the existing runways 1 and 19 L&R) opened in 2008, and development plans include a fifth runway to parallel the existing runway 12–30. An expansion of the B concourse, used by many low cost airlines as well as international arrivals, has been completed, and the Midfield Concourses C and D mainly house United Airlines, and will eventually be knocked down to make room for a more ergonomic building. Because Concourses C and D are temporary concourses, the only way to get to those concourses is via moving walkway from the Concourse C station which is built in the location of the future gates and Concourse D by mobile lounge from the main terminal.