United in talks with Dulles Airport to make overdue concourse upgrades

United Airlines and the operator of Washington Dulles International Airport are in talks over a potential multi-billion dollar upgrade that could see the airport’s widely derided Concourse C/D finally replaced. The project, which Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority CEO Jack Potter said is in a “conceptual” phase, would replace the 46-gate C/D facility with a modern structure in phases. “As proud as we are of Dulles, it was never designed for what it’s doing today,” United CEO Scott Kirby said earlier in October. The C/D facility was built as two temporary concourses in the mid-1980s and connected near the end of that decade after United established a hub at Dulles. Various crises, including the 1990-91 recession, 9/11 and the Great Recession, limited both the airline and the airport’s ability to replace the concourses. The works would build on the proposal for a new roughly 535,000-sq.-ft concourse south of the existing Concourse C designed to replace a regional aircraft facility on Concourse A. Virginia environmental authorities signed off on the regional gates replacement in July.<br/>