Washington Dulles International Airport’s board greenlit a plan Wednesday for a $19.9 billion renovation to overhaul the D.C. metro area’s largest airport.
The massive multi-year project — accelerated following a federal push — will preserve the iconic main terminal while replacing outdated mobile “people movers” with underground pedestrian tunnels and an automated transit system.
Key infrastructure changes for the primary international airport serving the District include new transit, terminal expansions and concourse updates.
Outdated mobile lounges will be retired from regular operations and replaced by subterranean tunnels and transit lines, and outdated temporary concourses are slated for replacement over the lifecycle of the long-term master plan.
The plan will also add roughly 5 million square feet of new or upgraded space, addressing rapid passenger growth.
President Trump announced the proposal last month, but the board excluded the president’s proposals for a 32,000-space “world’s largest” parking garage, a hotel and a new transportation center from the $19.9 billion plan.
The main terminal’s $6.2 billion reconstruction is set to begin in late 2027, the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority said. Underground transit and tunnel construction starts in early 2029.
The main terminal, tunnels and automated transit system are targeted for completion by 2034, though a separate package replacing Concourse C and D with a new 33-gate concourse would not break ground until 2039, with no completion date yet set.
A new 14-gate concourse has been under construction since 2023 and is set to open this fall, funded and scheduled separately from the packages the board voted on Wednesday.
Some grander visionary proposals, including the massive 32,000-space parking structure or adjacent hotel floated in initial federal concepts, were deferred for future review.
The rest of the project is largely financed through new municipal bonds and rising airline boarding fees, with the per-passenger boarding fee charged to airlines projected to surge from $13 to between $60 and $65 by 2038. This increase helps cover $1.1 billion of the roughly $3.75 billion cost of the new tunnels and automated transit system
The $19.9 billion figure includes $4.4 billion that the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority board had already authorized, plus $15.5 billion in new spending authority approved Wednesday.
Dulles was the fastest-growing large U.S. airport last year, with traffic up 6.4% to 29 million passengers, underscoring the underlying pressure driving the expansion.
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