Washington Dulles International Airport

Washington Dulles International Airport  is a public airport in Dulles, Virginia. It is  west of Washington, D.C. The airport serves the Baltimore-Washington DC-Northern Virginia metropolitan area and the District of Columbia. It is named after John Foster Dulles. He was the Secretary of State under Dwight D. Eisenhower. The Dulles main terminal is a well-known landmark it was designed by Eero Saarinen. The airport is run by the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority. Dulles Airport covers an area of . It is on the border of Fairfax County and Loudoun County, Virginia.

Dulles lies in two unincorporated communities, Chantilly and Dulles. It is west of Herndon and southwest of Sterling. Washington Dulles Airport is the largest airport in the Washington metropolitan area. It is one of the nation's busiest airports. The airport has over 23 million passengers a year. Daily, more than 60,000 passengers leave Washington Dulles to more than 125 destinations around the world. Dulles is the busiest airport in Virginia. It is also the busiest in the Baltimore Washington Metropolitan Area. It is accessible via the Washington Metro's Silver line.

At the end of World War II, growth in aviation and in the Washington metropolitan area caused Congress to pass the Washington Airport Act of 1950. This provided the money for a second airport. The location was selected by President Dwight Eisenhower in 1958.

Airlines
Largest carriers
+ Largest Carriers at Dulles (October 2010 - September 2011)     Rank Airline Passengers 1 United Airlines 9,698,380 2Mesa Airlines (United Express, US Airways Express) 1,067,635 3JetBlue Airways  1,050,845 4  ExpressJet Airlines (United Express) 951,085 5  Trans States Airlines (United Express) 901,528 6 American Airlines 891,974 7Atlantic Southeast Airlines (Delta Connection, United Express 839,316 8 Colgan Air (Continental Connection, United Express) 759,520 9 Delta Air Lines  677,008 10 Southwest Airlines  640,643

All airlines

 Aer Lingus
 Aeroflot
 AeroSur
 Air France
 All Nippon Airways
 American Airlines
 Austrian Airlines
 Avianca
 British Airways
 Cayman Airways
 Copa Airlines
 Delta Air Lines
 Delta Connection:
 Chautauqua Airlines
 Comair
 Compass Airlines
 ExpressJet
 Pinnacle Airlines
 Emirates
 Etihad Airways
 Ethiopian Airlines
 Icelandair
 JetBlue Airways
 KLM
 Korean Air
 Lufthansa

 Porter Airlines
 Qatar Airways
 Saudi Arabian Airlines
 Scandinavian Airlines
 South African Airways
 Southwest Airlines
 Turkish Airlines
 United Airlines
 United Express:
 Colgan Air
 ExpressJet
 GoJet Airlines
 Mesa Airlines
 Shuttle America
 SkyWest Airlines
 Trans States Airlines
 Virgin America
 Virgin Atlantic Airways

Incidents
On June 13, 1979, two tires on an Air France Concorde blew out during a take-off from Washington Dulles Airport. Shrapnel from the tires damaged an engine,  three fuel tanks, several hydraulic lines, electrical wires and the top of the wing.
On July 21, 1979, another blown tire on an Air France Concorde happened during take-off from Washington Dulles Airport. After this, the “French director general of civil aviation and Air France made it a requirement to inspect each wheel/tire before to each take-off.
In 2001, American Airlines Flight 77, a Boeing 757,  left gate D26 at Dulles to Los Angeles International Airport. It was hijacked and crashed into the Pentagon as part of the September 11 attacks.
On August 30, 2011, the left engine of United Airlines Flight 861, a Boeing 777, made a loud noise. The cockpit of the airplane became filled with smoke. The crew turned off the left engine and returned to Dulles Airport.

In fiction
Dulles has been used for many Washington based movies. This started soon after it opened with the 1964 movie Seven Days in May. The 1983 comedy D.C. Cab, starring Mr. T, Adam Baldwin and Gary Busey showed scenes outside of the main terminal at Dulles Airport. The action movie Die Hard 2: Die Harder takes place mainly at Dulles airport. The plot of the movie deals with the takeover of the airport's tower and communication systems by terrorists. The movie was not filmed at Dulles. Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) and the now-closed Stapleton International Airport in Denver were used. Part of the thriller The Package (starring Gene Hackman and Tommy Lee Jones) took place at Dulles. Again it was not filmed in Dulles.  Chicago's O'Hare International Airport was used in its place.

Portions of all three sequels to the disaster film Airport were filmed at Dulles:  Airport 1975, with Charlton Heston, Karen Black and George Kennedy; Airport '77, with Jack Lemmon, Christopher Lee and George Kennedy; and The Concorde ... Airport '79. Dulles was the site filmed as a New York City airport, in the 1999 comedy, Forces of Nature. The airport is also shown in the movie Body of Lies.  In the scene, Leonardo DiCaprio says he is in "Dubai International" on the phone. The curved roof and windows on the upper deck of the Dulles departures area can be seen behind him. The terminal can also be seen in the movie In The Line of Fire starring Clint Eastwood.

Dulles is used in many episodes of the television series The X-Files.

References

Other websites


 openNav: IAD / KIAD charts



Category:Airports in Virginia