United's aging Washington Dulles digs poised for an upgrade — complete with a huge United Club

If you fly out of Washington, D.C.'s Dulles International Airport (IAD) these days, you'll see your fair share of cranes and heavy construction equipment.

Beyond the airport's farthest-flung terminal, crews are hard at work on a half-billion-dollar terminal that's expected to house 14 brand-new United Airlines gates by late 2026.

Renderings TPG first shared last winter reveal an airy, natural-lit concourse — one that will someday house a 40,000 square-foot United Club, the Chicago-based carrier revealed this month. Once open, it will be one of the biggest lounges in United's network.

Read more: United Club Infinite Card review: United Club lounge access and elite airline benefits

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This construction is central to United's hopes to grow at a breakneck pace at its biggest mid-Atlantic hub, where, in 2024, it flew with 8% more total seats than it did in 2023, according to data from aviation analytics firm Cirium.

By April, United hopes to up its daily Dulles departures by 12% from its 2024 peak — and by far more, long-term, CEO Scott Kirby said while speaking to reporters Dec. 3.

"This terminal, really, is about being able to double our international service here at Dulles," Kirby explained, standing on the second level of Dulles' partially constructed Concourse E.

Plenty to be excited about in Concourse E

Indeed, there's plenty to be excited about in United's new 435,000-square-foot terminal.

Along with an overall brighter vibe and modern amenities, transportation to the new E terminal will be far more convenient than what most United flyers currently endure at Dulles.

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Today, if you're headed to United's Dulles D gates, the airport's notorious people movers remain the most direct ­(albeit unorthodox) route.

Meanwhile, passengers flying out of United's C gates typically take the AeroTrain but face a long walk to their gate after hopping off. The current AeroTrain station that serves the C gates is actually located beneath the new terminal under construction. While that's inconvenient today, it bodes well for the future.

There's an additional perk in this new terminal, too: The capacity it promises should allow United to eventually bid farewell to its ground-level, less-than-stellar regional A gates at the airport — gates that are all too familiar to passengers flying in from the likes of Charlottesville, Virginia; Dayton, Ohio; or Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, aboard United Express jets.

At the same time, there remains something of a proverbial elephant in the room: 14 new gates are hardly enough to sunset the aging terminal currently housing the core of United's Dulles hub operation — itself well past its prime.

But plans are forming.

Years to go for United's aging Dulles concourse

Last week, the airport's governing body told TPG that there still are no construction contracts formalized for a replacement of Dulles' C and D terminals — that long, carpeted, basementlike facility from which the vast majority of United's Dulles flights depart.

For years, replacing this facility has been a long-term goal of the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, which oversees Dulles and nearby Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA).

Yet, this decades-old terminal — and frequent scenes like the one below — remain the reality for customers of Dulles' top airline.

But there are signs of growing momentum.

This month, United acknowledged that the current construction of its new Dulles Terminal E is just the start of "multiple phases to come" for its future development at the airport.

Under a new agreement with MWAA this year, the carrier — along with its Dulles competitors — committed to billions of dollars in investment at the airport over the coming years. Those investments go well beyond United's 14 new gates that are set to open by late 2026.

Speaking to TPG on Dec. 3, MWAA CEO Jack Potter said the airport hopes to build a sizable extension of the terminal that's currently being built for United.

In fact, Potter said, passengers could conceivably see a second phase of the terminal open as soon as 2030. A third phase could perhaps open a few years after that in the early 2030s, he added.

"We're super excited about the opportunity to replace these C/D gates," Potter said. "That's long overdue." (A spokesperson for MWAA later noted there are still no official timeline and formalized plans in place for the construction, though.)

Larger plans for Dulles

Beyond United's plans at the northern Virginia airport, farther-out plans at Dulles call for the demolition of those ground-level regional A gates in favor of an extension of the airport's far more modern A/B concourse, where a slew of international airlines today depart to destinations all around the globe.

The airport also plans to eventually build a connector from that terminal to its iconic Eero Saarinen-designed headhouse, Potter said.

Unlike many of the nation's largest airports that have set one passenger traffic record after another over the past decade, Dulles' passenger traffic peaked nearly two decades ago in 2005.

All the while, nearby DCA has steadily grown its footprint, owing to an ever-increasing number of transcontinental flights allowed to depart from the smaller-footprint airport that is located just across the Potomac River from D.C.

But Dulles' annual passenger record should fall by the time 2024 is over, Potter said this month.

And it's clear, major growth is still on the horizon.

"We want to serve everybody," Potter said this week. "And we are counting on our partner, United, to lead the way."

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