Washington Dulles International Airport (original) (raw)

Washington Dulles International Airport (IATA airport code IAD, ICAO airport code KIAD) serves the Washington, DC metro-region. It is a hub to United Airlines. It is named after John Foster Dulles, United States Secretary of State under Dwight D. Eisenhower.

The airport is located partly in Chantilly (which has the airport's official address), partly in Dulles on the border of Fairfax County and Loudoun County, Virginia. The airport is west of the town of Herndon.

History and background

In 1962, the metropolitan area of Washington, D.C (with much help from the federal government) opened a large airport (in addition to the then-Washington National Airport) to serve the city and surrounding communities. The airport was designed by famed Finnish architect Eero Saarinen and dedicated by President John F. Kennedy on November 17, 1962. It was the first airport in the world specifically designed for jet aircraft, so many of its architectural features were experimental at the time.

While initially considered a white elephant, Dulles International has steadily grown. The airport chiefly serves, along with Baltimore-Washington International Airport, as the international gateway to Washington D.C.: it also handles most of the city's flights to the West Coast, because of legal restrictions on Ronald Reagan National Airport.

A flight from Dulles, American Airlines Flight 77 was crashed into the Pentagon on September 11, 2001.

In December 2003, the National Air and Space Museum opened a satellite facility at Dulles, which currently houses a Concorde, the Enola Gay B-29, and the Space Shuttle Enterprise, among other famous aerospace artifacts.

Main Terminal

The main terminal is regarded as one of the great buildings of the world; its roof is a suspended catenary providing a wide enclosed area unimpeded by columns.

The terminal at Dulles is the only airport in the world that uses the mobile lounge system (Mirabel International Airport in Montreal also used it for some time). Passengers board 54-by-15-foot lounges mounted on scissor trucks, which carry them from the main terminal building to the midfield satellite terminals, where they board their aircraft.

There are currently plans to scrap this system in favor of an underground people mover and pedestrian walkway, as part of a major engineering program that will also add a concourse to the main terminal and give the airport a fourth runway.

All incoming international passengers are taken by mobile lounge from their aircraft to the International Arrivals Building. Several airlines also use the mobile lounges to take their passengers directly from the main terminal to their departing aircraft. These include:

"H" Gates

"M" Gates

"T" Gates

These are not mobile lounge gates, but regular ground-level gates used by

Air Wisconsin and Atlantic Coast Airlines.

Midfield Terminals

There are two midfield terminal buildings: each is divided into two concourses.

Midfield Concourse A

Midfield Concourse B

Midfield Concourse C

Midfield Concourse D