Washington Dulles International Airport (IATA: IAD, ICAO: KIAD, FAA LID: IAD) is an international airport in the eastern United States, located in Loudoun and Fairfax counties in Virginia, 26 miles (42 km) west of downtown Washington, D.C.
Opened in 1962, it is named after John Foster Dulles (1888–1959), the 52nd Secretary of State who served under President Dwight D. Eisenhower. The Dulles main terminal is a well-known landmark designed by Eero Saarinen. Operated by the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, Dulles Airport occupies 13,000 acres (20.3 sq mi; 52.6 km2) straddling the Loudoun-Fairfax line. Most of the airport is in the unincorporated community of Dulles in Loudoun County, with a small portion in the unincorporated community of Chantilly in Fairfax County. The airport serves the Washington metropolitan area.
Dulles is one of the three major airports in the larger Baltimore–Washington metropolitan area with more than 24 million passengers a year. Dulles has the most international passenger traffic of any airport in the Mid-Atlantic outside the New York metropolitan area, including approximately 90% of the international passenger traffic in the Baltimore-Washington region. On a typical day, more than 60,000 passengers pass through Dulles to and from more than 125 destinations around the world.
Dulles Airport in 2018 surpassed Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA) in yearly passenger boardings after having fewer passengers ever since 2015. However, Dulles Airport still ranks behind Baltimore–Washington International Airport (BWI) in total annual passenger boardings, despite being a larger facility with more gates.
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