Washington National’s Old Terminal 1 Is Getting A $933 Million Rebuild — With A Half-Mile Walk And Southwest Lounge

Ned Russell flags the Washington airport authority’s plan to redevelop the old terminal 1 (‘the banjo’) at National airport, which currently serves Southwest Airlines, Air Canada and Frontier Airlines. The plan is for a $933 million project (in 2025 dollars, and this will almost certainly rise): New nine gate replacement concourse, ($535 million) and substantially complete by 2031 New headhouse with ticketing and baggage systems and a Terminal 1–2 connector inside security ($300 million) complete by 2044. Additional enabling work ($98 million) The airport authority’s plan is to replace nearly everything passengers currently think of as Terminal 1, while preserving and incorporating the historically protected portions of the original airport terminal. There are no new gates – it swaps the existing nine in the banjo for nine larger ones. It will be built immediately to the north of the present banjo. The current terminal actually has space that used to be a lounge (the Northwest World Club outside of security). The new terminal will have a 10,000 square foot lounge, clearly intended for Southwest Airlines. Southwest’s CEO has been talking up lounges and a new premium credit card coming and adding this to the known lounge pipeline would mean six: Austin Dallas Love Field Denver Honolulu Nashville Washington National The new passenger processing building or headhouse will actually be near Terminal 2, where the taxi staging area is today. That’s where passengers will enter the terminal, check in and drop bags. Then they’ll use the current terminal 2 security checkpoint, reversing direction and walking south past the B gates, through the historic Terminal 1 buildings and into the new nine gate concourse. The plan eliminates Terminal 1’s separate checkpoint. They don’t build a replacement. It means walking up to half a mile. This is going to mean a nicer, new concourse with more space, so less crowded. But it’s going to go from a simple, convenient and quick in and out to a much longer schlepp. That doesn’t make the airport better. Roads are going to have to be redesigned to bring cars to the processing building beside Terminal 2 instead of right up to the present Terminal 1 entrance where there are check-in desks, security, concessions and gates all right there. The one nice element here is that the 1941 Historic Main Terminal will still be there, and they’ll renovate the 1948 southern addition (and 1956 baggage building), using them to form the connection between the new concourse and the rest of the airport. Once enough of the new concourse is operating, they’ll eventually demolish the circular 1970 TWA banjo. It appears that part of the 1968 American Airlines terminal, including the existing police station, will also come down. This space will be used for aircraft parking and circulation. All of this construction is taking so long in part because of how it’s being phased to preserve nine usable gates throughout the project. They’ll open six of the new gates first, then close and demolish three old gates. Honestly, outside of Southwest Airlines getting a lounge, this all sounds terrible to me – not worth a billion dollars, and not worth having passengers walk half a mile for. Topics on this page