Washington Dulles International Airport (IAD) opened its first new concourse in two decades on Tuesday morning: a 14-gate building to be used only by United Airlines and designed to ease crowding at the fastest-growing of the nation’s 50 largest airports.
Concourse E, a $745 million project according to the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA), is the first phase of a more than $20 billion plan to modernize Dulles. Here’s the best news for travelers: The new concourse is connected to the rest of the airport via the AeroTrain. That means, unlike Concourse D—which instead relies on tarmac buses known as mobile lounges to ferry passengers from the Main Terminal—getting to and from the new concourse won’t include a frustrating and convoluted path.
“We’re trying to reduce the friction of travel,” United’s executive vice president and chief commercial officer Andrew Nocella, who grew up near Dulles, said on Monday. “When you enter this concourse, it’s wide-open spaces, a light-filled terminal, and a large club. . . . Whether you’re beginning your journey or ending your journey, you can just take a casual, relaxing approach to it.”
Cherry blossoms frame conceptual rendering of the north facade planned for Dulles.
Courtesy of United Airlines
Easier to get around, but there’s a catch
“Casual“ and “relaxing“ haven’t described Dulles lately. Passenger boardings grew 6.6 percent in 2025 to nearly 13.9 million, according to Federal Aviation Administration data, and the airport’s facilities haven’t kept up.
For passengers, that has meant cramped and crowded concourses, tighter lounge access rules (the Capital One Lounge, for example, admits travelers only within three hours of departure) and lengthy waits every step of the way.
Adding to that is an inefficient, and often confusing, geography: Some flights are reached by underground tunnels, others by the AeroTrain, and many require one of the airport’s 19 outdated mobile lounges.
While the AeroTrain serves Concourse E, it won’t eliminate the need for the tarmac buses altogether and here’s why. These 100-passenger shuttles were originally designed by the airport’s architect Eero Saarinen as a way to move people from the Main Terminal to their flights in the 1960s; today they’re used to move travelers between the Main Terminal and Concourse D. Many arriving international passengers, especially those coming into the C/D concourses may also ride one of these shuttle buses from the plane or remote stand—when the aircraft parks away from the terminal building and passengers deplane via mobile stairs and are then transported to the immigration hall. The introduction of the in-airport AeroTrain in 2010 didn’t make logistics any easier since it didn’t serve all concourses. The new AeroTrain stop at Concourse E solves that logistics problem.
Even so, all international arrivals into Concourse E will still need to use them to get to the immigration facility. Asked when those inefficient vehicles will be retired, Nocella told Afar: “As soon as possible.”That said, he does have a soft spot for them. “I don’t mind the people movers—it’s part of my history,” he said. “But I do understand the need to evolve and change and innovate. And the people movers need to be innovated out. There’s better ways to do it . . . but I can assure you that . . . while they will be retired, they won’t be forgotten.”
Updated modern details
Floor-to-ceiling windows frame the airfield in a rendering of the planned south atrium at Dulles.
Courtesy of United Airlines
Step into the 435,000-square-foot concourse and the contrast with Concourse C/D’s low ceilings and dim lighting is immediate: Concourse E is wide open and full of natural light. The north side features glass walls, while the south’s windows are smaller to reduce glare—and energy cost, Louis Lee, Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA) director of architecture, explains.
Concourse E’s best features are in the details. Gates have power outlets and charging pads at the seats. In the restroom, lights above each stall help identify which are available. Inside the women’s room stalls, there are two hooks, plus a rack for cell phones. Sink stations also have bag hooks.
Restaurants
Another thoughtful touch: Dining areas are integrated into open spaces of the concourse. “Although you could look at your phone, this way you can actually see the status of your gate, really reducing the anxiety of the past,” Lee says. Those restaurants pull in favorites from the D.C. metro area, including:
- Aventino from Bethesda, Maryland
- Honor Brewing from Loudoun and Fairfax, Virginia
- Ellie Bird from Falls Church, Virginia
- Good Company Doughnuts & Cafe with locations in Arlington, Virginia, and Washington, D.C.
- MurLarkey Distilled Spirits of Manassas, Virginia.
National chains Rusty Taco and Bonchon are here too, the latter making its U.S. airport debut.
The design
Despite its upgrades, the concourse honors its roots with odes to the Main Terminal, which was designed by Saarinen in 1962 (the same year his notable TWA Center opened at JFK, which is now the TWA Hotel).
The sleek new concourse most notably retains its custom typeface, “Eero”—which Lee explained is a Saarinen-designed “Dulles font”—on its gate markers, both along the main hallway as well as above the entrances.
Other nods to the Main Terminal include the use of the concrete-like “Dulles gray” hue as well as the faux wood paneling behind the counters. “We’re taking a more low-profile approach—we’re not competing with [the original terminal], but creating a more comfortable and enjoyable interior,” Lee says of his goal to make this the “best concourse” at the airport.
United’s second-biggest club
A glowing street map of downtown D.C. welcomes travelers to Concourse E’s United Club.
Photo by Kelly Marshall/United Airlines
Concourse E’s new United Club joins three existing United lounges and a Polaris lounge at Dulles.
At 40,000 square feet, it’s United’s second-largest club, behind the 54,000-square-foot one that opened Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport in October. The showstopper is the entrance: an escalator rising into a domed space modeled on a D.C. Metro station.
Suspended cherry blossoms nod to D.C. inside United’s 40,000-square-foot club, its second-largest.
Photo by Kelly Marshall for United Airlines
The club’s 630 seats lean midcentury modern, with rounded metallic lamps and booth-style seating. Outlets include USB-C ports, and some seats have W-shaped hooks for bag straps. A cherry blossom 3-D art piece hangs overhead. Ten pieces of artwork feature mostly D.C.-area artists, including photographer Scott Davis and painter Anne Marchand, plus Allison Eden’s piece that honors the nearby Potomac.
Open daily from 5:30 a.m. to 10 p.m., the facility also has eight private phone rooms (including a wheelchair accessible one) and restrooms with a diaper genie. But the most coveted seats are the 10 padded lounge chairs—five on each side—one overlooking the gates and the other the distant Blue Ridge Mountains.
Dulles will continue to evolve
Concourse E’s 14 gates are only the start of this planned, far larger Dulles airfield.
Courtesy of United Airlines
This is only the first phase of the development of Concourse E, which will eventually grow from the current 14 gates include to 25 wide-body gates by 2031.
“We’re roughly 250 flights a day out of Dulles today, and we’ve been growing,” Nocella says. “We’re going to have facilities that can accommodate at least 400 flights per day.”
While the future may seem bright, even with the opening of these gates, not all passengers will benefit. “Concourse E doesn’t replace the C/D concourses that have been serving passengers for more than 40 years—plenty of United travelers will still use those outdated facilities. The big changes at Dulles are what’s still planned, which ultimately replace C/D,” says Gary Leff, founder of the travel blog View from the Wing.
