Indeed, we did! To sum up my conversations with United's IAD station manager and chief pilot:

• Everybody hates the C/D concourse. Fun fact: Because it consists of separate facilities joined together (I guess that's why you have those corridors that slope up or down), it doesn't have any kind of central HVAC system. However, people in Chicago may not quite realize how bad it is.

• UA is no longer neglecting IAD: Flights and passenger volumes are way up, and management seems to have realized the asset they have for north-south connecting flights that would earlier have gone to EWR, where they can be the first ones delayed or cancelled.

• But United still doesn't like the debt at IAD, in particular that for the Aerotrain. I've tried to look up when that comes off the books but haven't been able to find out; however, since that project began in 2003, it can't be that far off. Right? The airline is also concerned about IAD's cost per emplanement, although that's been trending down. Per this Feb. 2018 report in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, at $20.95 it's now below EWR's $28.05 (and EWR has its own expensive projects coming, the Terminal A replacement and the PATH extension). Finally, UA really favors keeping the DCA perimeter rule.

• My sense is that UA both wants to see MWAA retire a bunch more debt and agree to kick in more to replace the C/D concourse. And if the airline's going to build out an extension to the C concourse for a Polaris Lounge, it must not see that coming in the next several years. Marginal upgrades to C/D may happen in the meantime - the station manager mentioned things like bigger windows and higher ceilings.

In short, IAD has at least a few more years to go serving as America's most persuasive argument for flying with *G status.