Seems like this is turning into Washington Week here on the blog. This time, however, it’s Dulles that gets some love.
United’s Washington/Dulles hub has always been something of a red-headed stepchild. It has long seemed unloved, and we’ve all heard calls to shut it down over the years, but those calls are misguided and really always have been. United has signaled that the Dulles hub would get growth, and that is happening. I looked over Cirium data to give you a sense of where things are heading.
United Washington/Dulles Departures by Month
Data via Cirium, includes Continental pre-merger
There really is a tale of two time periods here. From the mid-2000s until just before the pandemic, Dulles was a story of shrinking and upgauging. The number of flights plunged with July 2017 having over 20 percent fewer flights than July 2004. That is, of course, only part of the story.
Back in the mid-2000s, United was just trying to stabilize itself. Atlantic Coast had decided to go it alone instead of acting as United’s primary regional partner at the airport. United scrambled to quickly replace ACA’s capacity, but it was then forced to compete with the newly-christened Independence Air. None of it was sustainable, and at the beginning of 2006, Independence shut down.
That gave United a brief respite before the Great Recession further threw the industry into crisis. The decline continued through the Continental merger and into the mid-2010s. That’s when a strategy shift happened.
United, like many other airlines, decided to upgauge. It rapidly increased gauge at Dulles peaking at nearly 115 seats per departure in summer 2017, well above the mid-80 to mid-90 range it had been in. But then, the pandemic hit, and the airline came out very differently on the other side.
You can already see that the seats per departure climbed, but that wasn’t just from added widebodies as you might have guessed. It was also from the reduction in Essential Air Service and small airplane flying due to the pilot shortage. The number of destinations East of the Rockies dropped to the lowest level in decades.
United Destinations by Region from Washington/Dulles
Data via Cirium, includes Continental pre-merger
While those short-haul markets suffered, others were on the rebound. As you can see in the chart above, the beginning of the pandemic brought growth in Florida, Latin America, and the Caribbean. In some places at some airlines, that was a temporary surge, but United has found success in the region. It has kept more destinations, at least seasonally.
But Europe, or really, the Atlantic, has really taken off for the airline once borders reopened. Just look at what has been added:
- Summer 2021 – Accra and Athens
- Winter 2021/2022 – Lagos
- Summer 2022 – Amman (temporarily suspended due to war)
- Winter 2022/2023 – Cape Town
- Summer 2023 – Berlin
- Summer 2025 – Dakar, Nice, Venice
Summer of 2025 is going to be a big year for Dulles with a large increase in flying, but it is not yet the long-rumored fifth bank for the airline.
United Departures per Hour at Dulles
Data via Cirium
So far, the growth is all within the four existing banks with that morning domestic bank really surging in size. Meanwhile, over the Atlantic, the two banks just keep strengthening in numbers.
United Transatlantic Departures From Dulles
Data via Cirium
With additional restrictions going into place at Washington/National after the recent accident, Dulles may see an even more important increase in prominence out of necessity. And it is finally getting some facility improvement to help make that easier to achieve.
A new Concourse E is being built — the current layout has the main terminal, then Concourse A/B, and then Concourse C/D. Concourse E will be built on top of the people mover station and will replace the ground-loading United Express gates in Concourse A. Those will be replaced with more functional gates for other airlines.
One this stub is done, maybe Dulles will actually decide to replace the so-called Temporary Midfield Concourse, Concourse C/D where most of United’s operations fly. There’s already a public transit connection, and there’s plenty of runway capacity at the airport, so the pieces are coming together. If United really does want to flex Dulles, the time may be right.
28 comments on “Dulles is On the Rise at United”
IAD has a long way to go toward becoming a world class facility. UA dropped IAD-BER after just one season.
My parents frequently try and use IAD for international travel amd get frustrated when flights to Rome, Milan, Berlin, etc come and go… which means they always start out with a nonstop and frequently get rerouted through dreaded EWR…
Some of those are secondary cities as far as air travel to the US in general, not just to IAD – Milan only has nonstop service to JFK, EWR, and ATL, Berlin only has EWR and seasonal to JFK, etc. Rome has lots of seasonal service to the US, but relatively little year-round service comparable to Rome’s size.
Also, part of it is just the nature of the Washington area itself, a lot of people expect it to have more international service because it’s the capital. But it’s only the political capital, unlike most other countries where one city (London, Tokyo, Paris, etc.) is the political, cultural, and financial capital, and frequently the tech industry centre as well.
(That’s part of the problem BER has too – Frankfurt is the financial capital, and culture is more spread out. I have no idea where the German technology industries are based. Berlin is just not on a lot of Americans’ radar for tourism, or it’s part of a multi-city trip and we fly in and out of Europe through a major hub.)
Rome is the same situation – it’s the political capital, but Milan is the financial and business capital.
Munich has the biggest software industry cluster in Germany, and is the primary German engineering office for Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Apple. Berlin has a startup scene, but none of the success stories have gotten big enough to make a significant impact on corporate air travel demand.
The Washington-Baltimore CSA is much bigger than those capital cities mentioned. The population is 10 million plus, and it has overtaken Chicago to become the third after NYNJ and LA areas. So, this comparison is not correct. This area has a lot of O&D demand and probably ties to third or fourth in the country (LA, NY, SFO/DC/Chicago).
PHL–MXP seasonal service Summer 2025.
BER is a tough market, with much lower demand for transatlantic travel than you would expect for a city of its size and nominal importance. I believe the only year-round service between BER and the US is UA on BER-EWR and Norse Atlantic on BER-JFK (for however long that lasts…). Even DL only serves BER seasonally from JFK (and no flight to ATL!)
Check a date in late April, May or June through the 25th; the new 3pm mini bank will show up then. 20ish departures that hour.
It seems to go away on 6/26 for whatever reason. Schedule still not finalized or capacity re-allocation?
It’s only there during that period when the newark runway is under construction. It goes away as soon as the Newark runway construction is over.
Thanks for the analysis Cranky. I would be curious to see a map of the US showing which destinations have come and gone over those years.
Where I live in South Bend just got daily United non-stops for the first time since December, after Breeze added twice-a week nonstops mainly to fill up the schedule of the plane for its new EAS flight to Ogdensburg. There is a fare war going on with fares as low as $29 one-way on Breeze, $39 for United Basic Economy.
My only comment on this is I can’t think of a bigger insult to the hardworking people of the DC region than the effort to rename Dulles after Donald Trump…
I realize John Foster Dulles was no saint… but
Also, IAD’s potential won’t be fully reached until they finally move out of the temporary C-D terminal that united has been in for like 60 years now
…the hardworking people of the DC region
Does that include the overwhelming number of employees who have been “working at home” since Covid?
Yes on all points. Wait, there’s a consideration to rename the airport after the felon?
Yes, a bill was introduced in the House to rename it. https://wtop.com/loudoun-county/2025/01/could-dulles-airport-be-renamed-after-trump/
love the color choice. rising blue vibes
Annoying how small that last bank is. UA & their partners lose a lot of connecting traffic (including yours truly) from late afternoon / evening transatlantic arrivals to small & mid-sized US cities because the latest IAD departure for more than a third of their destinations is in the 5pm or 6pm hour. Glad they seem to be fixing that a bit this year (but the gap is still 81-53 destinations served in the 5/6pm vs 10pm banks).
Also, if you’re gonna be a true alternative to DCA for downtown O/D traffic, you gotta run a full bank late enough for folks to work through 4 or 5pm then haul out to Dulles & catch a flight. If there are 25-30 destinations whose final IAD flight of the day is before 7pm, thats not gonna fly for a lot of DC business traffic who’d have to end their workday before 3pm to make one of those flights.
They actually do have a 10pm block to most of their destinations, but you are right in the sense that people don’t want to wait till ten if they are business commuters…
Yeah, but according to Cranky’s numbers up there, the 10pm bank only serves 53 destinations (to UA’s credit, that’s up from 44 last year). The 5-7pm bank serves 81 destinations – that means there’s 28 destinations that don’t get a flight after 7pm (and its really earlier in that for most of them because most of the early-evening bank takes off in the 5pm hour).
Just to be clear, those aren’t destinations. Those are departures, so there could be multiple departures to a single destination buried in there.
UA at IAD still has one of the lowest average seats per departure among large international gateways/hubs. It is far closer in a range of hubs to AA and UA at ORD than other global hubs due to the high percentage of regional jets.
The problem isn’t just UA. It’s also very much MWAA. They sacrificed replacing the midfield concourse to spend on the Silver Line. Now that it’s (finally!) finished, they’re starting to give IAD some much-needed love. Hopefully, the end of the C/D concourse will finally see light.
the Silver Line is not and could not be funded by federal air taxes.
If UA or any other carrier wants to spend money to build new facilities, there isn’t an airport in the country that wouldn’t do all they could to grow and capture federal money in the process.
UA wasn’t interested in growing IAD and building a robust domestic network because they put all of their eggs in the NE basket in EWR. After the 2023 UA operational meltdown that stemmed from overscheduling EWR, UA realized anew that they have to diversify their NE network beyond EWR. UA at EWR has fewer departures and DL now has about 15% more flights from all 3 NYC airports than UA. Many connections can flow over IAD, leaving EWR for local traffic. DL and UA are now within a percentage point of each other in traffic from NYC even though DL has a huge RJ operation at LGA due to the perimeter rule, just as is true at DCA as CF has discussed.
DL is building BOS, AA is trying another round of rebuilding PHL so UA has to grow its presence in the NE.
There are strategic reasons why UA is moving forward; MWAA is coming along because UA is making the commitment to massive and costly terminal expansions just as they are doing in other hubs.
Absolutely untrue that any funds spent on the silver line could’ve or would’ve been used at the airport.
federal funds that come from AIR TRAVEL taxes cannot be used for off-airport uses other than for connections to/from city air transportation.
It is possible that MWAA could have used some of its budget for on airport vs. off airport uses but very few airport terminal projects are funded by off airport federal funds just because there are federal funds sources for on-airport projects
UA’s terminal expansion was not at all delayed because of how MWAA or other government agency used funds for mass transit
Tim,
Approximately 50% (~$3B ) of the funding for the Dulles Corridor Metrorail Project (aka the Siliverline extension) came from MWAA. https://www.mwaa.com/business/construction/dulles-corridor-metrorail/about-dulles-rail/funding
You are correct in the sense that most of that money comes the Dulles Toll Road being operated by MWAA and not from facility emplanement charges (just $246M of the total), presumably because as you point out that could only fund the airport station and my guess is the spur from the center of the Dulles Toll Road to that station.
However, I do believe it’s fair to say that if the Silver Line extension was cheaper or hadn’t been done, that at least some of the $3B MWAA spent there could have been used for C/D concourse replacement. This commentary from 2010 is pretty funny (https://www.thetransportpolitic.com/2010/01/26/dulles-airport-replaces-distinctive-mobile-lounge-system-with-aerotrain/), metro was supposed to reach Dulles by 2016, and the author vainly hopes the MWAA had learned something from the people mover that would help with metro… I believe history says the in fact did not. Let’s just hope they can deliver the planned C/D concourse for the estimated $6B price tag.
No, this is not correct.
The funding and financing plan was created by the state of Virginia. The only airport funds are to pay for the actual station, per the FAA rules on use of airport funds for ground transportation projects.
VA landed on toll road revenues as the way to pay for the Silver Line, and selected MWAA as the manager of the project. But the financing is completely separate. The only reason MWAA has control over the toll road is to finance the silver line; and the only legal use of toll road revenues are for maintenance of the road itself and to pay for the Silver line.
It is incorrect to say that if the project were cheaper that those tolls could pay for a new terminal – that is not allowed by law. The only impact would be lower tolls.
Likewise, if the Silver Line wasn’t built or was financed separately, MWAA wouldn’t be involved in the toll road at all.
Alex B is correct & I know it as a fact as I was following updates on the silver line build out.
The segment between Wheel Reston East to the connection to the orange line was in the hands of the WMATA. The rest of the line through the airport & beyond was constructed by MWAA & was turned over to WMATA once ready for revenue service.
AA PHL–MXP seasonal service Summer 2025.