On October 20, the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority released renderings of a paid VIP terminal at Dulles International Airport where passengers on ordinary commercial flights will park, clear security in private, wait in a lounge and then ride in a car across the airfield to their plane.
The building will cover about 37,000 square feet near the airport’s cargo buildings, well away from the Eero Saarinen main terminal. daa International, the overseas arm of the Irish company that runs Dublin Airport, will build it and run it. The authority expects construction to take about 30 months, and no opening date or price has been announced.
Reston Town Center sits under seven miles from the Dulles main terminal by the Dulles Access Highway, and downtown Herndon sits under five. The VIP terminal will add a paid alternative to that terminal for travelers from both towns, and it arrives alongside a much larger rebuild of the airport.
The VIP terminal will sit near the cargo buildings, off Air Freight Lane
According to the airports authority’s announcement, the terminal will occupy a 1.2-acre site near the cargo buildings. WJLA placed it north and slightly west of the main terminal, close to a runway and a cul-de-sac at the end of Air Freight Lane. FFXnow reported the parcel as 51,000 square feet near the Cargo 6 building, which matches the 1.2-acre figure.
VIP passengers will use their own parking and their own entrance, so they skip the departures curb at the main terminal and the security lines inside it.
The terminal will serve passengers on any commercial airline. It is a separate project from the private jet terminals at Dulles, which serve chartered and privately owned aircraft. NetJets, for example, plans to convert more than 14,000 square feet across two levels of an existing Signature Aviation building at Dulles into a terminal for its own members, with construction scheduled to start in early 2027, according to Luxury Travel Advisor.
Passengers will be screened privately and driven to the aircraft
The announcement lists these services:
- Dedicated VIP parking and an entrance apart from the main terminal
- Private security screening for both domestic and international travelers
- Suites, lounges and amenities kept apart from the regular concourses
- Personalized check-in and baggage handling
- A premium vehicle ride to the gate and the aircraft
The July contract summary that FFXnow reported also listed food and bar service, private suites, restrooms and Wi-Fi, and described the core job in one line: the contractor “will screen and transport passengers and their luggage to/from gated commercial aircraft.”
A passenger on a regular United flight to San Francisco would check in at the VIP building, clear a private security checkpoint, wait in a suite, and then ride across the airfield to the same aircraft everyone else boards. The seat on the plane costs the same; the fee pays for the ground service, which the contract summary extends to arriving passengers too.
The renderings carry the logos of daa International and Corgan, the Dallas architecture firm that served as lead architect for the modernization of Dallas Love Field. They show a lobby built around a reflecting pool, a bar under curved light coves, and a planted outdoor terrace. The authority labels all three as conceptual.
The $125 million figure is the lease’s value to the airport over 20 years
Several headlines have called this a $125 million terminal. That figure measures what the contract is worth to the airport.
The authority’s board approved the contract on July 15, 2026. FFXnow reported that the contract is worth $125 million over its 20-year term, and that daa will pay the authority annual rent plus a percentage of its total revenue. View from the Wing described the same $125 million as a promise of ground rent plus a minimum revenue guarantee to the airport. In both accounts, the money flows from the operator to the airport over the life of the lease. Neither the authority nor daa has published a construction cost.
The announcement sets the schedule: 30 months to build, then an initial 20-year operating term.
No price has been published, and PS charges $1,295 a person in Miami
An airport spokesperson told WJLA that passengers will pay extra, and that the amount is not yet clear. In July, authority officials said the operator would likely charge a daily or membership fee.
PS, the company that lost the Dulles contract, already runs this kind of terminal at Los Angeles, Atlanta, Dallas-Fort Worth and Miami. When PS opened its Miami terminal in June 2026, One Mile at a Time reported these prices:
| PS Miami option | Shared lounge, per person | Private suite, up to 4 travelers |
|---|---|---|
| No membership | $1,295 | $4,950 |
| $1,250 annual membership | $995 | $4,950 |
| $4,850 annual membership | $895 | $3,650 |
daa will set its own Dulles prices, and they could land well above or below Miami’s.
The contract survived a bid protest and a federal lawsuit, and an appeal followed
PS wanted the Dulles contract too, and it has fought the award for more than a year.
The authority’s original solicitation required bidders to show at least two consecutive years of experience providing TSA screening services and direct access to gated commercial aircraft, according to View from the Wing. After the authority signaled it would pick daa, PS protested, arguing daa lacked that experience. In September 2025 the authority canceled the procurement and reissued it with a different scoring method and a broader experience requirement.
The authority calls the new scoring method highest price, technically acceptable, which means the authority first screens out bids that fail its technical standards and then picks the one that pays the airport the most. The original method, best value, weighs price against the quality of each proposal.
View from the Wing also reported that Senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine and Representatives Suhas Subramanyam, James Walkinshaw and Don Beyer wrote to the authority in support of Potomac Holdings, daa’s Virginia partner, whose principals include former TSA and Customs and Border Protection officials.
PS’s local entity, Private Suite IAD LLC, sued the authority in federal court in February 2026. On July 15, the board rejected the losing bidder’s appeal and approved the award to daa. Board member Trent Morse cast the only vote against each, FFXnow reported. In August, Judge Beryl A. Howell of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia dismissed the suit with prejudice, finding that the authority had followed its own contracting manual and that nothing showed it had improperly favored daa. Private Suite IAD appealed to the D.C. Circuit on August 25.
daa runs Ireland’s two largest airports and has contracts in Saudi Arabia
daa, the parent company, is a commercial semi-state company that owns and operates Dublin and Cork airports, Ireland’s two largest. Its international arm won a contract in 2016 to manage Terminal 5 at King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh and a five-year contract in 2022 to manage Jeddah’s airport. Its travel retail arm, Aer Rianta International, runs duty-free shops abroad in countries including Canada, Cyprus, India and New Zealand.
Nick Cole, chief executive of daa International, said the company was “honored to have been selected” for the project.
The VIP terminal is a small piece of a $22.5 billion Dulles rebuild
In late July, the authority and United Airlines, which carried about two-thirds of Dulles passengers in 2025, unveiled a roughly $22.5 billion plan to rebuild much of the airport. Reporting by Explore and InsideFlyer lists the main pieces:
- Concourse E, whose first 14 gates the authority scheduled to open this fall
- New concourses to replace C and D, the aging midfield buildings
- Retirement of the mobile lounges, the boxy shuttles that have carried passengers since the airport opened in 1962, in favor of expanded AeroTrain service and walking tunnels
- A larger customs hall and upgraded baggage systems
- A parking garage with room for about 32,000 cars
Under the plan, bonds would cover most of the construction, repaid by airlines through higher fees, FFXnow reported after the authority’s September 16 board meeting. The authority’s cost per enplanement, the average amount airlines pay the airport for each boarding passenger, would rise from under $13 to between $60 and $65. Officials told the board the increase should be acceptable to the airlines already at Dulles but could make it harder to recruit new ones.
The VIP terminal is a short drive from Reston and Herndon, but Metro will not reach it
- The drive stays short, but the destination changes. VIP passengers will head for the cargo area on the airport’s north side instead of the departures curb.
- Metro will not reach it directly. The Silver Line’s Washington Dulles International Airport station, open since November 2022, is three stops from Reston Town Center, by way of Herndon and Innovation Center. It connects to the main terminal through a tunnel with moving walkways. Nothing announced so far links the station to the VIP building, so a Metro rider would still need a car for the last leg.
- It adds no flights and no runways. Every passenger the terminal serves is already booked on an airline departing from the regular concourses. For homeowners under the Dulles flight paths, the VIP terminal changes nothing about noise. The broader rebuild is the project to follow on that front.
For anyone weighing a home in Reston or Herndon against one farther from the airport, the rebuild carries more weight than the VIP building. Shorter connections, retired mobile lounges and a bigger garage will reach far more travelers than a paid terminal. The VIP terminal adds an expensive option on top.
The appeal, FAA review and a groundbreaking date will set the opening
The schedule runs 30 months from the start of construction, and no start date has been announced.
- The D.C. Circuit appeal. Private Suite IAD filed its appeal in August. A ruling for the authority would remove the last legal challenge to the contract.
- Federal Aviation Administration review. View from the Wing reported in July that the project still needs FAA review, and its author expected an opening in late 2029 or early 2030.
- A groundbreaking date and a price list from daa. Neither has been announced.
We will update this post when any of the three arrives.
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