Dulles International Airport is an embarrassment to the nation, poorly designed and poorly run.
I note this in the context of Dulles administrators’ announcement that they have developed a biometric identification system that can be used at airport gates. Although this system offers marginal improvements in security, preventing an individual from boarding a different flight to the one they are registered to travel on, Dulles should instead be focusing on making it easier for travelers to move around the airport.
Dulles’ absurd terminal busing system is unlike just about any other major airport in the developed or developing world. A significant proportion of travelers must board bus-like cars which drive around the airport in order to reach their terminals. The drivers of these buses are invariably rude and the condition inside the buses is invariably poor. In turn, instead of blowing money on biometric systems that aren’t needed, the Washington Metropolitan Airports Authority should invest in improving the length of its underground train network at Dulles so that it reaches all four terminals.
Next up, the MWAA should be reading the riot act to the Customs and Border Protection. While CBP officers are generally far politer than they were ten years ago, Dulles arrivals-passport areas are regularly overflowing with travelers. The central problem here is that the CBP never seems to have enough officers assigned to passport control. Conversely, a lot of CBP personnel always seem to be walking around the arrivals and baggage claim areas.
It’s true that the baggage claim area offers the final opportunity for CBP officers to identify suspicious travelers or smugglers, but by having so few officers assigned to the passport control area, those officers who are assigned to passport control are under more pressure to clear the sea of queuing travelers. That’s a poor recipe for detecting arriving spies, smugglers, and criminals at the nation’s capital. One solution here would be to fire the many non-CBP line assistance officers who have the utterly pointless job of shouting at travelers to follow the person in front of them towards the passport desks. Savings from these firings could be then given to CBP as a grant to hire more passport control officers.
Another issue with Dulles’ immigration line delays is that they discourage foreign tourists. Ask a foreign tourist who has previously traveled to Washington and you’re likely to hear a story of two or more hours waiting to clear passport control (I recently had a friend spend three hours as the CBP only had three officers assigned to noncitizen passport control desks). Such practiced disdain sends a very poor first impression to those who have traveled long distances to visit America. And it deters them from spending their money in our economy in the future.
MWAA needs to get its priorities straight. Biometric gate systems might seem snazzy and chic, but they are not the key to fixing a terrible airport.
