Airport leaders in the region seek to expand service from Dulles airport to Asia

DULLES — Officials at the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority say relationships built across Asia in 2024 are meant to translate into more nonstop options from Washington Dulles International Airport in 2025, even as geopolitical detours and limited China service continue to complicate East Coast–Asia flying.

Paul Bobson, MWAA’s vice president of airline business development, told the authority’s board on Wednesday, January 15, that personal connections remain essential in the Asian market. Authority staff attended three conferences in Asia over the past year and held 51 meetings to promote Dulles and the broader Northern Virginia region. The pitch comes after Dulles posted its highest international passenger count on record in 2023, with Bobson arguing there is still unused growth potential in cities such as Singapore, Bangkok, Taipei, Ho Chi Minh City, and several major urban centers in India.

Service to China remains thin. Bobson said only two weekly flights currently link Dulles and China, a fraction of what carriers operated before the pandemic and subsequent diplomatic and operational constraints. Russia’s war in Ukraine has also forced many U.S. East Coast airlines onto longer routings to Asia, raising costs and limiting how quickly new frequencies can pencil out. Those headwinds make destination diversification — beyond a narrow set of Chinese gateways — a central theme of MWAA’s airline meetings.

Board members pressed Bobson on what incentives might be needed to land new service. He said MWAA can offer marketing support for up to 24 months but does not waive or reduce the facility charges all airlines pay to use the airport. That stance keeps the authority from racing to the bottom on fees while still giving new entrants promotional help as they build awareness in the Washington market.

CEO Jack Potter told directors he expected Dulles’ final 2024 passenger count to surpass 27 million, which would set an all-time high for the airport. Reagan National Airport was on track to report about 26 million passengers for the same year. Both Northern Virginia airports also logged what Potter described as a record-breaking holiday season, underscoring rebound demand after years of pandemic disruption.

Revenue trends tracked the traffic gains. Chryssa Westerlund, MWAA’s executive vice president and chief revenue officer, said 2024 was bringing record parking revenue and record concession sales at the two airports. Those ancillary dollars matter for an authority that funds capital programs and debt service without a local property-tax base.

United Airlines, already the dominant carrier at Dulles, announced plans to expand further at the airport. Potter told the board the partnership with United “has never been stronger,” a signal that growth in Asia and elsewhere will likely lean heavily on the hub carrier’s network even as MWAA courts additional foreign airlines.

For Northern Virginia travelers and businesses, the stakes are practical. More Asia flights from Dulles shorten trips for federal contractors, tourism, and university traffic that now often connect through West Coast or foreign hubs. Whether 2024’s conference meetings become 2025 schedules will depend on airline economics, aircraft availability, and how quickly carriers can make longer East Coast–Asia routings profitable. MWAA’s message is that the demand and the airport capacity are there — and that the next step is turning introductions in Taipei and elsewhere into published flights on the Dulles board. Regional economic developers have long treated Dulles as Northern Virginia’s global front door. Technology employers in Fairfax and Loudoun counties, federal contractors, and universities recruiting international students all benefit when a traveler can fly nonstop rather than connect through another hub. Bobson’s list of target cities — from Taipei and Singapore to Indian metros — tracks where business and diaspora demand already shows up in connecting traffic. Converting that connecting demand into nonstop flights is the hard part, and MWAA is betting that 2024’s face-to-face meetings leave carriers with a clearer case when they build 2025 and 2026 schedules.

Fairfax County is a county in Northern Virginia. Its county seat is Fairfax, an independent city.