A Vision for Dulles

A replacement for the airport's decades-old "temporary" concourse may finally be coming

I’ve updated the story for paid subscribers to include comments from MWAA’s Design Department Manager, Louis Lee, on the design of the new Concourse E.

Out past the “temporary” United Airlines gates, next to the AeroTrain station to “nowhere,” a steel frame rises from an empty section of airfield at Washington Dulles International Airport.

The frame is the beginnings of the first new concourse at the airport in more than 15 years. A project that, when fully complete sometime in the early 2030s, would replace the temporary Concourse C-D that has been home to United’s hub at Dulles since the 1980s.

“Go straight here,” Jack Potter, the president of the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA) that runs Dulles, said on a recent hard hat tour of the project, pointing out past the end of the frame to the empty airfield beyond where the authority plans to eventually build a new linear concourse. “That’s the [AeroTrain] station, and then we’re going to go west of the station.”

The future Concourse E departures level at Dulles airport.

The authority’s plans are no small step forward for Dulles where for years United’s hub was seemingly forgotten, operating from a corrugated metal-clad concourse. The building is a relic of the ‘80s with all the warmth of the pre-fabricated portable buildings at my public middle school.

Despite the temporary concourse and Washingtonians’ general antagonism towards Dulles — it’s too far, it’s too big, the mobile lounges are annoying, etc. — the airport is booming and DC’s gateway to the world. Nearly eight-in-10 of the region’s international flights take off from Dulles, schedule data from aviation analytics firm Cirium Diio shows. Baltimore-Washington International Airport is a distant second, and Reagan National comes in third.

The authority and United hope the new Concourse E, or the “Tier 2” concourse per Dulles’ master plan, will enable new flights and ease some of the local ire. Designed by PGAL, the first phase will feature 14 gates sized for narrowbody aircraft like the Airbus A320 and Boeing 737 and is due to open in late 2026. It will directly replace the ground-level gates at the end of Concourse A designed by HOK and opened in 1999. (United tentatively plans to move Express flights from A to C-D, and mainline flights to E)

Renderings of the new Concourse E at Dulles airport. (MWAA)

Renderings of the interior show an airy, open space. A high sloping roof features a north-facing clerestory window that brings light into a wide central corridor. Glass curtain walls provide panoramic views of the aircraft ramp. And warm wood tones accent the concourse walls with United’s blue globe logo sprinkled about.

Another word for it? Bland.

The renderings show no evidence of architectural touches connecting the new space with Dulles’ design heritage: Eero Saarinen’s iconic jet-age main terminal that opened in 1962. HOK, in its design for the midfield Concourse A-B that opened in phases from 1997 through 2008, features structural elements on the roof that angle down to a nadir at its center in a subtle nod to the curvature of Saarinen’s roof. The same roofline nod features in Skidmore, Owings & Merrill’s (SOM) design for the Dulles Metro Station that opened in 2022.

But nice and bland may not be bad for Dulles.

Inside the “temporary” Concourse C-D at Dulles.