WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump announced a sweeping makeover of Dulles International Airport on Wednesday, including building new concourses and removing its aging shuttles, known as “people movers.”
“We are announcing plans to add more than 5 million square feet of new or renovated space. We’ll replace the current C and D concourses, which are basic disasters, all the while preserving the iconic original terminal,” Trump said at an event in the Oval Office.
Trump said he selected the designs “after an extensive review of more than 30 proposals with the top architects anywhere in the world.”
The redone airport, in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, will include a “magnificent” multistory parking garage with 32,000 parking spaces. “It’ll be actually the largest garage in the world,” Trump said.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the “people movers,” which transport travelers through terminals, will be replaced by a faster and more efficient “horseshoe rail system.”
He added that the project’s $22 billion cost won’t need to be federally funded. It will be “bonded for $22.5 billion. United is going to partake in part of the payment, but the airlines who participate in the project are going to pay for it,” Duffy said.
United Airlines said in a news release that the work will include more than 5 million square feet of new or renovated space, with new and modernized concourses, an expanded main terminal and upgraded boarding areas and ticketing facilities.
Duffy said that there is still some permitting left to do but that officials are hopeful the project can begin by next spring.
Trump said that they hoped to have the project completed within two years and that the airlines’ projection for the work was originally 60 years.
The Transportation Department said in a news release that “the transformation will occur in phases over several years.”
United presented a different timeline in its release, saying the project will “transform the airport over the next decade into a modern, world-class gateway.”
At the White House event, Duffy said: “We’re trying to move at the speed of President Trump. It’s never fast enough, but we’re going as quickly as possible.”
At the airport, travelers’ reactions were mixed, with some telling NBC News they had no major issues with the airport — besides the people movers.
“They jam you in like sardines. You smell diesel fuel all the way back,” said Bill Eberhardt, who was waiting to pick up family members and said he flies out of the airport three or four times a year.
Becky Saleh, who’d just arrived from Paris, said the vehicles, also known as “mobile lounges,” aren’t very welcoming.
They’re “very old-fashioned,” and “they’re hot, they’re sticky,” she said, adding that it “seems like a very antiquated way of moving people in this day and age.”
As for the airport itself, Saleh said that it’s “easy in and out compared to some major airports” but that “I think there could be some improvements.”
Trump has been eyeing the project for months. His motorcade took a detour through the Northern Virginia airport in October to “assess potential future projects,” the White House said at the time.
Trump, a former real estate mogul, later said he had big plans for the airport.
“We’re gonna make that into something really spectacular. We have an amazing plan for it,” he said in December.
“We’re also going to rebuild Dulles Airport, because it’s not a good airport,” Trump said at a Cabinet meeting in December. “It should be a great airport. It’s not a good airport at all. It’s a terrible airport.”
In a news release that day, the Transportation Department said, “Washington Dulles International Airport is known for its dated facilities, inefficient system of people movers that deliver passengers as much as a half mile away from their gates, its moon-rover-like ‘mobile lounges,’ jet fuel smell in the concourses, and a paltry number of gates at the main terminal.”
Named for the late Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, the airport was formally dedicated by President John F. Kennedy in 1962. It is one of three Washington-area airports.
The administration has previously expressed interest in renaming it.
Multiple sources told NBC News in February that the Trump administration had asked Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., for Dulles International Airport and New York’s Penn Station to be named after Trump in exchange for releasing federal funds required to build a long-delayed tunnel between New York and New Jersey.
The money was eventually released without such an agreement.
Trump has been heavily involved in various construction and renovation projects around the Washington area in his second term, including building a new ballroom at the White House, adding extensive gold moldings in the Oval Office, renovating the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool on the National Mall and advocating to build a massive arch.
His name has also been added to various government properties and projects, including the Institute of Peace. It had also been added to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, but a judge ordered his name to be removed from the facade this year.
As of this month, Trump has had an airport named after him: Palm Beach International Airport in Florida was officially renamed President Donald J. Trump International Airport.
“This will soon be one of the Greatest and Most Spectacular Airports anywhere in the World!” Trump said on Truth Social the day it was renamed.
