With more than 14 million passengers moving through in June, July and August, the summer season will have proved to be a record-breaker for Ronald Reagan Washington National and Washington Dulles International airports.
But first, the number-crunching needs to be wrapped up.
The exact summer-months total has yet to be reported, but officials with the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority anticipate to continue seeing high numbers en route to another record-setting year.
“New airlines and destinations keep coming,” said authority president/CEO Jack Potter at the body’s Sept. 18 board meeting. He was speaking specifically about international service at Dulles, but his comments are more broadly applicable for all service at the two airports.
For July – the last month for which passenger totals have been finalized – Reagan National saw 2.3 million passengers (up 5% from a year before) while Dulles recorded 2.7 million (up 11.4%). Both were records for any July at the airports and at Dulles was the busiest month ever; the previous mark at Dulles had been set in July 2005, when Independence Air was making a brief and ultimately unsuccessful effort to compete against the airport’s dominant carrier, United Airlines.
Still the airport’s dominant carrier at Dulles in 2024, United has announced plans for upward of 30 percent passenger growth at the airport in coming years.
“Dulles has been one of the fastest growing hubs in the United network,” said Paul Bobson, the airports authority’s vice president in charge of airline-business development.
The effort to bring new or expanded service to airports provides its share of challenges, Bobson noted. The recent inauguration of nonstop service between Dulles and Mobile, Ala., was seven years in the making, he said.
To help accommodate that and other expected growth, the airports authority is planning on billions in capital spending over the coming 15 years.
