United Airlines expects busy Labor Day weekend at Dulles Airport

United Airlines planes at Dulles International Airport (courtesy United Airlines)

The upcoming Labor Day weekend is anticipated to be a busy one for travel, including at Dulles International Airport.

United Airlines, the airport’s biggest carrier, says it will average more than 240 nonstop flights per day to and from Dulles over the holiday weekend, starting today (Thursday) through Monday (Sept. 3). The number of departing flights will be up 10% compared to last year’s Labor Day weekend.

Worldwide, the airline predicts this will be its busiest Labor Day weekend on record, with over 2.9 million passengers flying over the five-day period — a roughly 4% increase from last year.

“We’re capping off a record-setting summer with our busiest Labor Day weekend ever — and we’ve seen a slight uptick in demand in the last few days as people plan last-minute getaways,” United Chief Commercial Officer Andrew Nocella said.

According to United, travel is expected to be busiest today and tomorrow (Friday). During the weekend, the airline will fly an average of 53,000 seats in and out of Dulles each day, and based on the number of bookings, the five most popular destinations will be San Diego, Orlando, Frankfurt in Germany, Boston and Seattle.

The weekend will continue a generally promising year for Dulles Airport, as it continues to bounce back from the plunge in travel during the early years of the COVID-19 pandemic.

More than 12 million people boarded planes at Dulles last year, a 17.6% increase from 2022, Gazette Leader reported last week based on Bureau of Transportation Statistics data. The airport was the 26th busiest in the country, though it was still a couple of spots behind smaller Reagan National Airport.

Though data for the summer hasn’t been released yet, commercial passenger activity at Dulles increased 6.2% for domestic flights and 14.8% for international flights this past May compared to May 2023, according to the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority.

United Airlines, which accounted for 65.7% of airport’s commercial passenger market, saw passenger activity tick up 6.7% for domestic flights and 15.9% for international flights “primarily due to higher demand and increase in service,” MWAA said in the report.

To support its operations in the D.C. area, United is planning to open a 20,000-square-foot flight training center at 14109 Park Meadow Drive in Chantilly, the Washington Business Journal reported on Monday (Aug. 26):

Set to open in 2025, the training center will be equipped with classrooms, mock airplane cabins and aircraft door training stations to simulate evacuations and other emergency situations. It’s expected to serve the training needs of United’s flight attendants who are based out of Dulles (IAD), Reagan National Airport and BWI Marshall Airport.

A United Airlines spokesperson confirmed to FFXnow that a training center for its flight attendants is in the works, but there weren’t any more details that she could share “at this time.”

In June, United announced that it anticipates hiring nearly 10,000 new workers this year, slowing down its pace compared to last year due in part to delays in getting planes from Boeing.

Nationally, more people are expected to travel domestically for Labor Day weekend, but international travel will dip, according to AAA.

The Virginia Department of Transportation is lifting most highway work zones and lane closures, starting at noon tomorrow through noon on Tuesday, Sept. 3.

“Heavier congestion is expected throughout Virginia on Friday, Aug. 30, and Saturday, Aug. 31,” VDOT said in a news release. “In the Northern Virginia and Fredericksburg areas, it is likely travelers will experience heavy congestion on the interstates from mid-morning through early evening on Friday and Saturday.”

  • Angela Woolsey

    Angela Woolsey is the site editor for FFXnow. A graduate of George Mason University, she worked as a general assignment reporter for the Fairfax County Times before joining Local News Now as the Tysons Reporter editor in 2020.

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