Although their official operations/consolidations list has not been updated, reports are coming in that United Airlines will be consolidating their operations at Washington DC’s National Airport on Tuesday, July 10. They will be taking over two gates currently occupied by Delta in the south pier of the terminal and vacating their gates in the central pier. This is the space where Continental operated from historically.
There are two good bits which come out of this announcement. First, consolidating the operations into a single security area is great news for customers. That checkpoint also has TSA PreCheck at it so that is a win, too. Better IRROPs handling should also be possible as passengers won’t have to move to the other area in the terminal.
The second bit of good news is that this means the old Presidents Club lounge is being kept. The facility is one of very few in the network which actually has some character and connection to the local station. It has great views and a somewhat majestic feel inside.
Yeah…I’m really happy this is happening.
UPDATE: The United Lounge Locations page shows the legacy RCC closing permanently on the 10th. Sounds like the move happens that night!
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The old UA pier is getting pre-check as well, the security lanes have been reconfigured sometime in the past week — one lane with metal detector only, and two lanes with nude-o-scopes (the nude-o-scopes are new). There’s also a sign that ‘PreCheck is coming’.
The elimination of the split operation should be good to solve customer confusion. And I’m with you — keeping the lounge near the ex-Continental gates is good news for United flyers. That’s the old ‘Formal Dining Room’ for the airport. And it’s a great space.
The RCC will become a US club in about a month.
But it now makes it harder for UA and US connections. Before you could take a secure bus but now you will be required to go thru the check point.
Yes, WIll, those connections will be a bit harder. But I doubt anyone at US or UA really cares all that much. There aren’t really all that many great routes or interline connections which transit DCA which either carrier benefits enough from to make that something that they want to push rather than keeping passengers on their own metal.