Passengers at Washington Dulles International Airport will undergo security checks in a new location starting Sept.15, as the airport plans to complete part of a long-awaited project by the end of the year.
The screening process will take place at a new permanent facility, and the old checkpoints will no longer be used, said Rob Yingling, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority. The new security mezzanine will be on the airfield side of the main terminal.
“The new screening location is one of the many programs constructed under the Dulles Development Program,” he said. “We’re working right now to prepare to inform the passengers of that change.”
In 2000, the authority, which runs Dulles and Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, began planning the 10-year, $3.4 billion development program. A major portion of the plan involves an overhaul of its longtime “mobile lounge” fleet. A new airport train car system, known as the AeroTrain, is set to launch this year to largely replace the mobile lounges, which shuttle passengers aboveground from the main terminal to their airplanes. The AeroTrain will run underground and carry passengers to and from the airport’s main terminal and concourses.
The train cars for the automated, underground system are being testing, Yingling said. The authority has not set a specific date for when the system will start, he said, but it is anticipated to open by the end of 2009.
The project is designed partly to accommodate a jump in passengers flying in and out of Dulles. In 2000, the airport surpassed the 20 million passenger mark, and in 2008, the airport served 23.9 million passengers.
Since 1962, Dulles has used the lounge fleet to transport passengers from the terminal to airplanes. The lounges were originally designed as 54-foot long, 16-foot wide, 17 1/2-foot high vehicles, and could carry more than 100 passengers directly from the terminal to the aircraft on the ramp.
