The Navigation Nightmare at Washington Dulles Airport
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- Опубліковано 21 чер 2024
- Hello!
In this video I talk about the various methods of getting around Washington Dulles International Airport, which include walking, the AeroTrain, and the mobile lounge, the most interesting of them all. I also briefly touch on how Eero Saarinen, the airport's architect, originally intended the mobile lounges to be used.
Chapters:
0:00: Introduction
0:12: Brief History
1:16: Metro Interlude
1:40: Airport Overview
2:06: No Transit
2:39: AeroTrain
4:49: Spanish Solution
5:33: PenFed Hell
6:13: Mobile Lounge
8:18: Conclusion
Media Sources:
[1] Plane Mate: / dulles_international_a...
[2] Eero Saarinen: commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
[3] The Concept Video: • Washington Dulles IAD ...
[4] Singapore Skytrains: commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
[5] E Concourse: www.flydulles.com/new-concour...
[6] Soyuz Docking: • New Crew Docks to ISS
Those mobile lounges look like something you might expect to see trundling over the snow of Antarctica!
Or in northern Canada, for safe viewing of polar bears.
@@robertcartwright4374we actually have them at Montreal's airport for the remote stands. I was in one a couple of weeks ago
Or on Mars in a 70s sci-fi thriller.
Fun fact... The mobile lounge driver seats are repurposed Norfolk Southern locomotive seats. The NS logos are stamped into the seat backs.
Those seats must be really old because I work for NS and never seen those blue seats and the oldest locomotive I’ve worked with was from 1960
@zachfila the seats were not the same model as the ones shown. The rebuilt units have a black seat with plastic backing with the NS logo and name formed into them.
@@zachfilathe only shot of the driver seat was at 7:11, and that was a pretty poor view through plexiglass reflections. I couldn't really tell if the driver seat was blue or black.... Were you referring to the blue seats shown in the passenger area?
As an Employee at Dulles those Mobile Longes are definitely some useful, powerful, amazing machines even considering how old some of them are! They are also used to bring passengers to the Terminal when planes park in the " stand area " and don't have a gate . My Virgin Atlantic flight landed and parked at the stand area and a Mobile Lounge hooked right up to the A330 and took us right away lol they hold about 100 passengers each so it only takes a few of them to unload even a wide body aircraft. I have also seen them used at Dulles to take a way passengers from the plane when they have had emergency landings and can't move the plane from the runway! They are definitely cool to have here !
And can find other uses for vehicles such as those across the nation and maybe used at other airports like JFK, la guardia, detriot, Chicago ohare, la airport,etc, a theory
I had no idea those beasts were that old. I always found them interesting as unique, double-ended vehicles, but they never struck me as a particularly wondrous innovation in airport throughput modality (especially, as noted in the video, upon arrival from an international flight. 😵)
i am a flight attendant for jetblue and we had to in IAD due to DCA being closed. we had to park at the fedex ramp and a mobile lounge came to get us. it was really cool.
I never knew concourse C/D was only supposed to be temporary. Now that I think about it, it definitely feels that way. Little natural light, small gate spaces. Great video, nonetheless! Dulles certainly has one of the more interesting airport transit systems.
There's nothing more permanent than a temporary solution
Thank you! I also had no idea until researching for this video. I think that calling it “temporary” was just to get away with building a cheaper concourse, but I may be wrong.
If that’s the case, then I’d like a “temporary” extension of the AeroTrain to complete the full loop. “Temporarily,” of course.
Ive work at Dulles since 1987, and Terminal C and D were NEVER meant to be temporary..They were built to be and ARE PERMANENT..The guy making this video is a CLUELESS, NARCISSISTIC CLOWN.
It wasn't
When I was a kid (pre 9/11), you could just go to the airport and ride those mobile lounges around. My parents and I would literally ride them back and forth a few times to look at all the planes, then go ride a different one. It was like a free amusement ride.
And then there are the observation decks, which I'm pretty sure were closed off well before 9/11. 😢
That would have been cool. My family used to go sit at the gates of SFO and watch the planes come in and out.
when you said "penfed hell" it triggered my fight or flight response 😂 the jingle haunts me in every waking moment
ALL OF THIS!!! Dulles is my home airport....SHEESH!!!
I did notice on last week's flight that they did in fact turn the volume down on the jingle from hell.
P e n f e d s g o t g r e a t g r a d e s f o r e v e r y o n e!
Not as bad as Kars 4 Kids!
@@bryanwelsh7608 PenFed compared to Kars4Kids is like comparing heartburn to a massive coronary. Not even the same galaxy as one another.
I'm old enough to remember the excitement when Dulles opened. The architecture, of course, was the zoomiest aspect that was celebrated, but the mobile lounges were also touted as the future of boarding airliners.
30 years ago when I was a gate agent there, we boarded our flights at "A" gates on the back of the main terminal. We would load the passengers on mobile lounges and they would drive out and then lift up and connect right to the door of the plane which were parked on hardstands. Depending on the capacity of the plane and load, we would use 1-3 mobile lounges per flight. Each "gate" would have 2 mobile lounges parked. (if a 3rd was needed, one would pull up after one of the two departed.) On some of the bigger planes, the mobile lounges would pull up to multiple doors on the plane to speed up boarding. e.g. Rows 1-26 board on the lounge to the left. Rows 27-45 to the right. One lounge pulled up to the mid(L2) door and the other lounge would pull up to the aft (L3) door.
The walk from the AeroTrain to C/D is brutal. The computer voice on the train is super hard to understand and everyone gets lost.
Brutal? Lol..Why are you LYING? I work at Dulles, and it's an EASY walk..I do it 5 days a week
I remember when I arrived at Dulles from the UK and not only was I greeted to a beautifully cramped mobile lounge ride to customs and immigration, but then I got to spend an hour and a half waiting in line to be let through :)
I user the original terminal. The system was wonderful. My dad said that the big advantage was that planes did not have to taxi to and from a terminal. He said in the 1st year the fuel cost savings exceeded the price of the traveling lounges. What killed the idea is that instead of extending the length of the original building for more traveling lounges, they came up with idiot ideas like the mid field terminal.
In its original form Dullas was my favorite USA airport. It is also in one of my favorite films, "7 Days in May "
Such a cool video! I’ve been wanting to see a tour of the airport like this one, and the overview of the mobile lounges is really neat. Thanks for making it!
The first time I set foot into a mobile lounge in 1984, I thought my parents had taken me to Disney land, and I got so excited. What an amazing machine! Someday I wanna convert it into a mobile man cave!!
The worst part about that airport is if you are flying out of D and decide to take the Aerotrain. I actually like the mobile lounge.
I will sometimes take the mobile lounge to D when flying out of C because I prefer the walk in the terminal to the walk from the station to the C gates...
I had a layover in Dulles a few years back. Before I landed I knew nothing about the airport- the mobile lounges were a shock, but I thought they were really cool. Definitely the most interesting part of an otherwise dull airport.
Good ‘ol DULLES and yes i was at opening day of Silver Line Phase II albeit later in the day. Dulles IS the airport you need to get there 2-3 hours before your flight anyways because of said transit. Hopefully one day the aero-train (sp.) will be a continuous circuit. The mobile lounges has GOT TO GO!!
I dont know I like those mobile lounges, good seating with great views
The airport is terribly designed for international travel. Mobile lounges are here to stay forever for international arrivals
Mobile lounges were very fun to use. Made IAD very unique.
Fantastic overview! You've really got a knack for writing and editing these things. Can't wait to see what international adventures you're off to!
hello Caleb classy whale
Thank you!
@@nathantransitj i thought this was KDFW
Those mobile lounges are cool, if you ask me. I just hope they are still around for the foreseeable future to aid in moving more volumes of people along with the AeroTrain and the walkable concourses.
You got it all down pat, superb research and writing!
Took the mobile lounges years ago between terminals, the underground train did not exist yet. Thanks for this update on how to get around!
Very entertaining and fun to watch. Thanks for posting this.
Great Video Today!! Thanks For Sharing, Enjoy The Weekend.
You get better and better all the time.😊
Very interesting video, you earned yourself a subscriber! Great job!
Dulles is my home airport. When I was little (and the outdoor observation deck was still open) I used to love to watch the mobile lounges. Now (45 years later) I fly much more often and I still really enjoy riding the lounges. I think if you like planes and big machines, you will like the lounges (even when they are crowded). I know they will probably disappear one day but I will be sad when they do. Another fun fact, one was repurposed as a space shuttle vehicle...it met the astronauts on the runway.
I flew from IAD in 2021 and the aero train was the first driverless train I remember riding!
KIAH?
@@randomtransitadventures GFK
oh
I once flew in on LH, connecting to UA domestically, but still needed a mobile lounge prior to CBP because LH uses the int'l concourse, so there were two mobile lounge options: one for terminating pax to go to the main terminal, and one for connecting pax that went to concourse C's CBP.
At TIA in Albania, I have seen a similar mobile lounge, but since there are no jetways at TIA (all departing exits are on the ground floor), it is used for people with disabilities. This type of mobile lounge has a platform that can be lowered to the ground, for people to get in, then it can dock to the airplane for ease of access.
As always, you have to notify the carrier for this type of assistance so that they can coordinate with the airport services.
This was a very informative and well produced video. Kept my attention the whole time. I love the mobile lounges. Too bad that concept quickly went obsolete.
Very informative? Well produced? Lol. WTF is WRONG with you? I work at Dulles, and a lot of what this clown is saying is ABSOLUTELY NOT correct
Brilliant video sir, they look like something out of thunderbirds!
I never knew about the mobile lounges until watching this video! Thanks for sharing!
I flew into IAD last year, even though I needed to transfer at CLT. I was really looking forward to the Silver Line, I have been following the progress for years. There was a bus bridge that day! What? However, the Silver Line shuttle to IAD was available, so I told the ambassador I was getting off at McLean. I took the bus bridge from McLean to Ballston-MU. If I said I was going to DC, I would have been sent to the express bus bridge to Rosslyn. Like you mentioned in the video, driving is still faster than Metro. I was more for the Silver Line over speed, so I didn’t take the express bus bridge.
Bro at my job 😭🙏🏾
Was YMX not using only mobile lounges to board an aircraft?
Because there where no "nose in " gates at YMX.
Say what you want, but these things have a style all their own. Always brings a smile to my face when I see it roll up
Years ago, I boarded many domestic flights at Dulles via the Mobile Lounge. The lounge took us directly to the aircraft, just like the catering truck. Often, two lounges would be docked at the plane at the same time (front and rear doors).
If you put a circular polarizer on your lens, you can cancel the reflections in the platform doors.
The Silver Line to the airport is slower than driving because it makes so many stops. Now, if they quad tracked the line for express service, it’d be a different story, but good luck paying for that.
On a separate note, that is the main problem with Marta in Atlanta…no express option from the Northside to the airport because there is no infrastructure to support it.
The Plane-Mate style lounges are identified with the two-letter abbreviations for U.S. states, with the "standard" mobile lounges having single-letter identifiers. MWAA recently announced that they are going to be overhauled, so they're here to stay for a while.
The H gates have that letter due to the gates being "hardstands" - remote/disconnected from a terminal facility. As you said, they're the closest to Saarinen's original vision for Dulles.
Looking forward to seeing what you've gotten up to with your international trip! Not sure if you're still traveling, but continued safe travels if you are!
YESSSSSS!!! PenFed has great rates for EVVERRRYYYYONNNEEEE!!!!! That jingle is HELL!!! Welcome to Dulles....LOL!!!!
Did you try using a circular polarizer to remove the reflections on the glass?
I rode one of these lounges in 1976 when boarding a TWA transatlantic flight. It was amazing and very modern at the time.
I like IAD for the convenience of international flights. However, when entering the US, one must use the mobile lounge to go to immigration and customs and it can be very inefficient . On my last flight we had to wait for 20 minutes for a lounge to arrive and then spent another 10 to 20 just to get to the immigration area. I know there were plans to use an underground train for this purpose, it is past time to reevaluate.
So I understand these mobile lounges do no longer dock direct on a plane? I do remember having seen pictures of these mobile lounges years ago, but I had forgotten about them. And I have not yet been in the USA.
Montreal airport also has these mobile lounge's although only ever seem to be used for International flights that there isn't gate space for.
Great video! One transit mode that was overlooked (that I frequent) is the dreaded Economy Parking shuttle. You get what you pay for I suppose, but nothing is more aggravating than your flight finally arriving to the airport, riding a cramped mobile lounge, waiting for your bags, then having to wait for a Green Lot shuttle that spends 20-30 minutes weaving around endless aisles of parking, stressing that you're going to miss or forget your stop, then the moment of panic when you're trying to recall where your car is actually parked... oh, and then having to wait behind a line of exiting vehicles whose drivers are fumbling for their parking ticket and credit card to pay their way out :P
I have never taken the parking shuttles! I probably should one day to check them off my list but they sound infuriating.
Rode in one once I tried describing the experience to a friend, it was like getting into a train car that was also an elevator that lurched forward like a taxi and brought you to the other side of the airport!
Pretty cool, never seen something like that before, loos so futuristic
I grew up near Dulles, when the mobile lounges were the only way to get to the planes on the tarmac. Also when the Concorde started to fly to Washington. Before all the additions, the sweeping ceiling of the airport defined the total space. It was beautiful. Every gate was a mobile lounge. Of course not many people used Dulles back then. It was mostly international I think, and for the planes that National could not handle.
The mobile lounge trip from the Main to D terminal is *so* much better than the train to C. Fantastic machines. On arrival, the Mobile Lound shaves almost 5 minutes and a long walk off the trip to Baggage Claim.
Dulles is a disaster. I had to ride on one of those stupid things. It was crowded, and slow. I hate flying out of there
I boarded a widebody plane from one of these mobile lounges only once maybe 5 years ago. It was an interesting experience and very convenient for planes that are not parked at the terminal, but I guess this is rather rare at Dulles (for widebody aircrafts)
I had no idea about the mobile lounges when i got there. It was very confusing cuz i didn't realize i was getting on a vehicle
I refer to those as the silly bus. BTW, I'd rather be walking than standing and waiting for a bus after an 8hr flight.
I remember the first time I flew out of Dulles and encountered these. I thought they were one of those ideas of the 50s/60s of how life would be in the 21st century
thats why i love atlanta. huge airport. logically laid out, and you can either walk or take the tram.
I remember the Munich Germany airport had them when I was there in 1982.
They still use those at Dulles! Cool! Beats walking miles like in most modern airports.
Mobile lounges have been around for a while now (way pre-2000's), its a leftover from when passengers would actually go onto the Tar Mac to board the planes (like you see the President do). Jetway's pretty much made them obsolete overnight, but Dulles keeps a few around.
Whew, this makes me appreciate my "home" airport, ATL, even more!
I remember riding these arriving with an SAS A340 from CPH to IAD. New experience! Was pretty cool.
I dont fly a lot, but I flew out of/into Dulles last year, and I rode on the lounge into customs. I wondered what the story behind those things was, thanks for the video
The idea of a moving lounge to wait for your plane does sound very nice. Too bad it cant work that way anymore
Also, I totally forgot about penfed hell until your video gave me flashbacks XD i cant understand how any company could think something like that is good for their image, its just weird and annoying, and i never wanted penfed insurance less
Flew into Dulles in 2000 and that was the only way to travel between the concourses or the main terminal. We got in at 1230am on a delayed arrival from Denver and I just remember my dad going "pick up your feet, we will miss the shuttle/lounge." The reason, Dulles only ran 1-2 mobile lounges between the terminals of about 30 minute intervals.
I got to ride on a mobile lounge like this, but in Mexico City. It was a bit of a surprise but they had no available gates when we arrived and the space we were parked at required the use of one of these lounges. It was a pretty cool experience.
But was it elevated as much as these ones, or was it just a wide bus from e.g. COBUS Industries?
@@JanusTroelsen It was a mobile lounge not a bus. We de-boarded directly into it from the front passenger exit. This was back in 2002 so not sure if MMMX is still using them.
Dulles might have the most beautiful airport building in the US...? And National isn't that far behind. How many regions outside of DC/NoVA have a choice of two Metro-accessible airports? Though if I were the governor of Virginia I would push for an all-Virginia line, connecting Court House to Arlington Cemetery (or, Pentagon City?) and thus Dulles to Reagan National.
Virginia Railway Express (VRE)
Chicago (O'Hare via the Blue Line, & Midway via the Orange Line)
Three, if you consider that BWI is connected via the MARC rail!
As for beauty: if we include buildings that still exist (even if they’re no longer used for airport operations), then the winner has to be the TWA center at JFK. Like Dulles, it’s also a Saarinen design. If you ever have a layover at JFK, take the air train to the TWA center - it’s open to the public and is a great “free lounge” with lots of space. It has tons of architectural details to explore.
The mobile lounges are more efficient than the train that drops you off a mile away from the terminal and makes you walk. Plus the mobile lounges give you a sweet view up close and personal of the airport environment.
I am quite used to this airport, as I arrive via Dublin in Ireland I go through pre-clearance and customs in Dublin (They have a USA border controls there) and don't use the mobile lounges as we arrive in the Departures area and get the air train back to the luggage collection.
YMX Montreal Mirabel also had those mobile lounges for boarding,
Between 1962, when Dulles first opened, and 1980, no one wanted to drive all the way out to Dulles (30 miles from DC) to catch a plane when National was just across the river. If you visited Dulles, it appeared almost abandoned. Nearby townhouses were boarded up. No one wanted to live that far from DC, either.
Ten years later, as privatization of government services came in, the population grew, expanding DC's commuting area and the need to use both Dulles and National. It was at this point that the mobile lounges became obsolete. The underground pedestrian walkways offered the first alternative transit between the main terminal and Terminal B. Now, there are more terminals, located farther from the Main terminal.
Added to that, in the late 1990s, the main terminal was expanded to, I'm going to guess, twice its original length. Thus, more passengers came, and new ways to move people from the main terminal to the far outer ones became necessary. As the video said, Dulles really is like a city, one that has grown exponentially over the past 62 years.
The times I’ve flown through Dulles the Mobile Lounges were packed like sardine cans and slow. They really to upgrade Dulles!
NASA also had two mobile lounges that were very likely clean rooms at the same time as they were used to transport astronauts between the primary facilities and the launch pads during the Apollo and Space Shuttle programs.
Fortunately enough to have actually used this mobile lounge system, truly unique albeit a bit counterintuitive considering airport design logics of the modern day
IAD is my home airport. The worse part of the tunnel to C gate is not the walk, but the stupid PENFED song that plays all the way through with PENFED ads the entire length of the tunnel. So I hear that dumb song in my brain for the entire flight.
They also work well for Deplaning passengers stuck in remote spots after they have to divert here. Or if the plane becomes disabled on the runway
My old boss Ken (best boss I ever had) loved flying into Dulles. He thought that the design of Dulles would soon be the design for all new airports. I slowly watched it morph to become like most other airports - with trains and long concourses. I still like Dulles, but prefer DCA because of Metro access even though the Metro now goes to Dulles.
i actually liked the mobile lounges me and my mom took them last time we flew through dulles but we also wasn't in a rush since we had a 4 hour layover
JFK use to have those when the new International Arrivals Hall was under construction. They were stored for a long time until scrapped in the late 2010s.
Before 9/11, these mobile elevated lounge/busses were used to allow passengers to board large aircrafts with multiple entrances. These mobile lounge/busses were expensive and are last of it's kind.
I need this because im arriving from an international trip on united and I want to go from C to A to go to the Chase sapphire lounge. Then I need to go to the D concourse.
Canada's Montreal CYUL airport has these too!
"airports like dulles aren't built anymore" Sir, SLC International Airport's brand new terminals would like a word...
In my experience they used the mobile lounges to bring international passengers to customs within the secure zone.
They managed to fit all of the passengers on my flight into two of those things. I was flying a full 77W. It was miserable.
I seen them in old movies. Didn’t know they where still in use
Unfortunately my experience with Dulles and the mobile lounge is not great as the airport direction is not clear and the mobile lounge could be slow due to traffic hold up. If you only have 1 hour and 15 minutes to do your transfer, good luck in Dulles
Some of this is incorrect (as someone who has used the mobile lounges since the late 80s) - they weren't "impractical leading to their demise once more than one was required" - there were literally DECADES of use requiring multiple mobile lounges per flight, this was absolutely normal and hardly any one flight required only a single mobile lounge. Also, they weren't really EVER used individually "for one flight" unless it's a red-eye and your flight was the only arrival on the concourse, even then unless you were fast, you'd have to wait for a second one - sometimes you were lucky and they planned for the arrival, having multiple mobile lounges waiting / loading at the same time for you. For the most part though, they simply stood by at the end of the terminal gathering passengers from ALL flights in the entire area, so there wasn't really such thing as a specific number of mobile lounges "per flight" perse.
Also, some of the actual docks required the use of the "plane mate" (not a single person has ever used this term though, and I've never see one dock with a plane - that didn't last long at all) ie. the mobile lounges with the screws to change height. Frequent travelers also knew which docking areas would use the mobile lounges in both directions (obvious when the driver was on the other end of the vehicle when you were boarding) - you'd always want to go to the opposite end when boarding, which the rookies always thought was stupid, till they realize a few minutes later that the mobile lounge is docking from the other end and we were the first ones out lol! For whatever reason, docking at both ends was seemingly random and a large part of the time, they'd throw you off and just turn around instead (I used to ask the driver in passing while boarding if they were going to do this haha.) This was all before the Aero Train and the new terminal though.
I recall MANY red-eye flights as a kid with my father heading into Dulles, feeling like a complete zombie, dreading the hour-long drive home, getting our bags in baggage claim, etc, then realizing "NOOOO WE HAVE TO GET ON THE MOBILE LOUNGE ALSO!" Most pax had no idea, but deplaning we were always running to get the first mobile lounge.
Makes me feel old thinking about it, but then again I also remember parking at the airport (again, as a kid) and hearing the high-pitched whine of the JT-8D engines, smelling the glorious JET-A fumes, etc. Everything was so much more exciting, loud, and alive - everyone was dressed up and polite, security was far easier, and flights actually had included meals! Sigh.
Naw, those are not mobile lounges. They are shark buses! So named because of the big fins ontop made to see them when in their lowered config.
Oh yeah, Montreal did this too on a few occasions when extra gates/ramps are needed. Tom did cover this too, on Montreal's side. ua-cam.com/video/j3OqAN4ISOw/v-deo.html
I had to spend the night in IAD (not DCA as I previously indicated) in a lounge on top of my luggage while I was in the USAF flying home from Korea when my tour there ended, I was so exhausted and sweaty, there was no USO there at time time (93" maybe still?) I'll always be grateful for the Dulles airport cop that was a USAF reservist who brought me back to his station and let me take a nice shower there. I do remember those people trains too, I don't think I've been to IAD since.
DCA is Reagan National Airport, IAD is Dulles Airport
It doesn’t sound like you were ever at DCA. Dulles is IAD.
@@tookitogo I've been to both, I screwed up my airport code. I've definitely been to Dulles. thanks for pointing out my error!
@@santoshNarayana yeah as commented above i made a mistake w/my airport code although I've been to both. thanks (edited my comment)
Dulles is my "home" airport, my family prefers it over Washington National, and the airport is really nice overall. The mobile lounges are really cool too. Haven't used the Aero Trains much, I guess for the flights we take we don't use them much.
The only thing I hate about Dulles is having to take those lounges back to the terminal from the international terminal. I wish they would just continue the trans service and have one for international passengers. Especially when you get off the massive jets or you end up in that afternoon rush when you have like six 777 sized or larger planes docked at the same time. The irony is...I do love the view you get from them though. Got some beautiful shots of the 747 I road in on that day.
my grandma always flys into dulles. she flew out of regan. i live 40 minutes away in stafford. super fun and annoying time living here in virginia
You forgot to mention that the star alliance parts have to take the mobile lounge to get to the uniteds transfer international arrival area.
These are called "MOBILE LOUNGEGS" used to take passengers from airport buildings to aircraft especially at busy airports .
This is probably UA-cam's fault and not Nathan's, but does anyone else get a kaleidoscopic lilac "wormhole" effect instead video of the aerotrain tunnel at 2:43? I can sometimes get it to play correctly by backing up and pausing/unpausing at the right time, but most of the time it's a bizarrely beautiful mess at that segment.
I remember when there was talk that Dulles would close cause it was too far away.That would’ve been a huge mistake
Wait I went on a work trip 3 weeks ago and was connecting there. That is THE WORST airport I have ever been in wtf I got lost like 3 times😭
I almost always want a gate near the mobile lounges. The walk to the train can be annoying
Used the mobile lounge yesterday on arrival into Washington, it makes you feel like a prisoner or in some kind of incubation period, wasn't very nice at all.
I love the moon-buggies. I will go out of my way to ride on them when flying into/out of/through IAD.