US President Donald Trump said his administration plans a major overhaul of Washington Dulles International Airport, calling the 62-year-old facility “terrible” and arguing that the airport’s long-criticized layout now requires a full rebuild.
Trump made the comments during a cabinet meeting at the White House on December 2, 2025, tying the Dulles project to broader federal infrastructure efforts. He pointed to the airport’s age, layout, and longstanding operational challenges, arguing that major upgrades are overdue.
Trump said his administration plans to “rebuild” the airport and transform it into a facility that better reflects the region it serves, describing the main terminal as an iconic building saddled with what he views as outdated and inefficient infrastructure.
“It was incorrectly designed with a good building. Actually, it’s got a beautiful terminal… one of the greatest architects in the world at the time,” Trump said, referring to Eero Saarinen’s 1962 main terminal. “And so they have a great building and a bad airport, but we’re going to turn that around.”
Saarinen’s sweeping concrete terminal remains one of the most recognized designs in US airport architecture. But the airport’s original concept — built around a fleet of mobile lounges that ferried passengers between the terminal and midfield ramps — has struggled to keep pace with the region’s growth and current airline operations. While Dulles later added underground trains and traditional concourses, a fleet of mobile lounges and “plane mates” is still used for international arrivals and connections.
Trump said his administration intends to move quickly. “We’re going to make Dulles Airport serving Washington and Virginia, Maryland, etcetera… into something really spectacular,” he said. “We have an amazing plan for it.”
The airport sits about 30 miles from downtown Washington, D.C., and handled more than 25 million passengers last year.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy also highlighted a recent incident involving one of Dulles’ mobile lounges. The crash, which injured 18 people, renewed criticism of the aging vehicles and prompted calls for their retirement. Duffy said the Department of Transportation will soon begin soliciting bids related to improvements.
“We had a crash recently,” Duffy said. “We’re going to announce later today the request for bids on this. But again, it’s not a great airport, which we can make great in this administration.”
Trump’s nominee to the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA) board, Trent Morse, has already said publicly that he intends to push for phasing out the mobile lounges. MWAA operates both Reagan National Airport and Dulles.
Trump will undoubtedly draw on his long background as a commercial real-estate developer as he turns his focus to Dulles. Before entering politics, he oversaw major projects ranging from the redevelopment of New York City’s aging Commodore Hotel into the glass-and-steel Grand Hyatt to the reconstruction of Central Park’s Wollman Rink, a project he likes to remind people he completed ahead of schedule and under budget.
He has often argued that poorly designed public facilities can be fixed with decisive action, a point he has made for decades — including his critique of New York’s Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, which he has said was “built backwards” because its dramatic glass façade faces 11th Avenue rather than the panorama of the Hudson River. More recently, he ordered the demolition of the White House’s East Wing to make way for a new 90,000-square-foot ballroom, a project for which he has personally directed several design changes.
Trump reiterated that modernizing Dulles will be a priority. “It was a badly designed airport,” he said. “We’re going to make it into as good as there is in the country.”
The administration has not yet released a timeline or cost estimate for the project, but officials said the first step will be opening the formal bid process for infrastructure upgrades.
