Dulles Finally Gets a Real Concourse: United Unveils Concourse E and a Giant New Club

United primarily operates its Washington hub out of Concourses C and D, which, as One Mile at a Time puts it, "were built as temporary facilities in 1985." On November 9, United and the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority unveiled the first piece of their replacement. Concourse E is a 435,000-square-foot building with 14 new United gates, and United said it would open to travelers on November 10. It is the first new concourse at Dulles in nearly two decades.

The gates are the point. United says Concourse E "will allow the airline to fly more than 300 daily departures" at Dulles, and AirlineGeeks reports the airline expects to top 300 daily departures from the hub next summer, after its departures there rose 30% since 2022. The gates come in configurations that can take one widebody or two narrowbodies, every gate has a jet bridge, and the concourse connects directly to the AeroTrain. The Points Guy notes the new gates sit directly above the AeroTrain station for Concourse C, and Chief Commercial Officer Andrew Nocella said United will fly both international and domestic flights from them.

The club is the other reason to route through E. It is nearly 40,000 square feet with seating for more than 600 customers, which United calls "one of the largest airline clubs in the Western Hemisphere" and One Mile at a Time calls the carrier's second-largest United Club in the system. It sits across from gates E14 and E16 and, per OMAAT, is open daily from 5:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. The concourse also brings new dining, beverage and retail options, including a food court.

This is only phase one. Concourse E's opening is the first of four planned construction phases, and later phases are expected to add up to 36 more United gates. TPG reports that United plans to grow Dulles to around 400 daily departures with all the new gates. Jack Potter, CEO of the Airports Authority, told TPG the aim is to finish building out Concourse E by 2030, with the wider airport redevelopment open by the mid-2030s. He called this "the first step to retiring Concourse C-D," along with eliminating the mobile lounges, "someday." The whole Dulles program is a separate, larger number: United and the Airports Authority describe more than $20 billion of investment to modernize the airport over the next decade, so don't read that figure as the price of this building.

The timing lines up with the fleet, too. United says it plans to launch its first international A321XLR service from Dulles, to Amsterdam and Dublin, in December. Scott Kirby called Dulles "a critical part of United's global network and growth strategy," and for a hub whose main concourses were built as temporary facilities, our read is that Concourse E is the first building that looks the part. OMAAT's verdict was simpler: "it looks like a real terminal, and not like a temporary facility."