Jun 22, 2023 - News

Dulles Airport to test out "people mover" makeover

Cuneyt Dil

An exterior view of the "people mover" mobile lounges at Dulles Airport — The quirky "mobile lounges." Photo: Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post via Getty Images

Dulles International Airport's "people mover" shuttles are 60 years young, and now destined for a facelift.

Why it matters: Dulles flyers know you can't always get from plane to gate without first riding on these funny-looking mobile lounges/plane mates.

Driving the news: A $16 million plan is in the works for a "complete ground-up re-engineer and design" of two of these vehicles as a test case to upgrade the whole fleet, DCist reports.

It would cost about $160 million to upgrade all of the 18 mobile lounges and 29 plane mate vehicles. (The latter vehicles lift off the ground to directly connect with an aircraft during disembarkation.)

Between the lines: These vehicles are obsolete virtually everywhere else but still needed at Dulles, in part because the AeroTrain rail system doesn't reach Concourse D.

Flashback: Dulles architect Eero Saarinen once envisioned these weird, vertically ascending vehicles to serve cocktails — a luxury lounge on wheels.

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Dulles Airport to test out "people mover" makeover

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