People mover hit the dock at Dulles this afternoon
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Anonymous
For those wondering, the very long term planned solution (15-20 years from now) is essentially a closed system walkway from the A/B concourse to the main terminal building, so planes could unload and people walk through secure corridors to the International Arrivals Building (which I think is also planned to be expanded, understandably). I am not totally sure what they would do with planes arriving to what will eventually be the new C/D concourse. The train will also be extended on the other side to the new eventual C/D concourse. It's in the master plan document. But the big buses are being refurbished now so they can last until all of that is built. https://www.ffxnow.com/2025/09/22/dulles-mobile-lounges-could-last-another-two-decades-airport-officials-say/ https://mocoshow.com/2025/07/16/dulles-airport-master-plan-phases-out-people-movers-and-introduces-fifth-runway/ |
Anonymous
My mom and I had one take us out to a large plane for an overseas flight once (maybe 25ish years ago). Until then I didn't realize they also move up and down. |
Anonymous
| Is C/D still “temporary?” |
Anonymous
Yes, they are building the first portion of the E concourse now- directly above where the train currently stops now for C. The first portion of that is 14 gates expected to be done late next year. Once that finishes, they have the gate capacity to tear down the regional "gates" on the end of the A concourse, so those can be rebuilt as real gates. The extension of E will come next, and then the next concourse south of it, concourse G, will need to be partially built before D and then C are demolished, which won't be until 2040 and 2045. Basically they can't give up the gate capacity at C/D until a WHOLE LOT of new gates are built. https://www.flydulles.com/Next Pages 7 and 8 show the 2040 and 2045 proposed/likely layouts. https://www.mwaa.com/sites/mwaa.com/files/WEBSITE%20-%20Tab%2011.1%20Recommendation%20to%20Approve%20the%20Washington%20Dulles%20International_0.pdf |
Anonymous
This actually made me think about my flights to Dulles in the 1990s - I swear the mobile lounges took us directly from the plane to the terminal - or is it my faulty memory? The PP here who seems to know a lot about Dulles (thank you for all your interesting contributions!) might know if it was indeed the case back then or not. It actually felt very cool going up and down with a direct deplaning into the people mover - almost the way Saarinen envisioned it. On all the recent overseas arrivals we had to go through jetway first to the concourse then load to the people mover - almost defeating their original purpose. |
Anonymous
Not sure, never flew out of Dulles until the early 2000s, but the B concourse wasn't built until 1998 (per Wikipedia), and that's where all the non-United international flights go, so yeah it seems entirely possible they were still unloading some flights using the big buses (sorry, can't call them mobile lounges, it's just not accurate) before those gates were built. |
Anonymous
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We returned from CDG this summer on Air France and exited straight from the widebody plane into a mobile lounge. There was only one and once it was full (less than half the plane) we had to stand there and wait for it to empty and come back.
Normal for domestic flights it just goes terminal to concourse and doesn’t connect directly to a plane. |
Anonymous
why the snarky answer to a reasonable mitigation proposal? getting more vehicles and drivers has to be 10% of the cost of building an entire new system and would improve 50% of the experience if passengers didn't have to wait and then be packed in like sardines with people having to stand in the aisles which is less safe than everyone seated. |
Anonymous
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sorry the snarky response i meant to highlight said "Please let us know how quickly you can source double the number of vehicles and the staff to operate them."
how quickly can you build a whole new system or what is your proposal snarky poster? we need more people movers!!! |
Anonymous
As stated in multiple linked articles in this thread, the company that made the people movers went out of business long ago. MWAA has basically had to create it's own fabrication shop to make replacement parts (or paid someone to do that for them). It would take years to gin up a production line for new people movers, and then years to get them built/tested/approved. It would also be VERY expensive because of the investment costs in essentially creating a new assembly line. That is not a small thing to do, and usually is only done once a manufacturer has demand for thousands of vehicles. To do it for 50-100 vehicles has to be very cost-ineffective. I don't know the details/specifics, but you know who does? Finance people who work for MWAA and manufacturers. As someone who works in a field requiring a lot of complex long term planning that is opaque to most people, it's just very frustrating to have people chime in with "just DO IT" as if life was that simple. I am not saying MWAA is some model of efficiency, trust me. But they have a planning process, have gone through the scenarios, cost/benefit, etc. Yes the big buses are frustrating and annoying and a bad entry to the DC region, etc, etc. Some things in life aren't perfect. |
Anonymous
| why does it have to be the exact people movers vs. buses with some type of ramp down or up to the terminal. |
Anonymous
That is probably the backup answer if there are significant issues with the people movers. A lot of accessibility issues there (ramps have to be a certain pretty shallow slope for safety, for instance), and you would need A LOT of buses and drivers. A normal bus at an airport has around 30 seats or so when you have to give space for wheelchairs, luggage, etc. The people movers hold over 100 people. And I am sure people would still complain about buses, possibly more! |
Anonymous
| I'm always afraid a plane is going to crash into the people mover. |
Anonymous
| I hate C/D so much that I have switched to Delta so I can go out of B and enjoy the lounges (using my Priority Pass). |
Anonymous
| NP. About 10 years ago, I was on a mobile lounge at Dulles following an international flight that crashed into a truck on the tarmac. People were thrown around and there were injuries. The driver just docked the thing and as normal and yelled at everybody to leave. After people began insisting, airport police, paramedics, and some airport exec showed up. They downplayed the whole thing and clearly were afraid of the liability. Not sure what happened after that, as we were only a bit dazed and not injured and so continued on. The handling of the whole thing but the airport authorities felt super sketchy and made me wonder how often it happened. No one from the airport apologized or seemed to thing that the collusion was a big deal at all. |