My parents spent 10 years living aboard their boat at the Gangplank Marina in the Washington Channel in DC and I spent a couple of years working on a yacht there - which is maybe a half- to a mile from DCA as the pigeon flies and just outside the flight paths. Every morning, I had to wash down the decks to rinse off a layer of black "dust" from jet fuel exhaust. I am sure the amount of exhaust dust in the air on the airfield where the mobile lounges operate is dramatically higher that where the boats are. So, yeah, air quality around an airport is not great at all. And while the filters you photographed don't look great, it does not surprise me that the ML air filters get very dirty quickly. but having dealt with the managers of the mobile lounge shop in the past, I know they are on top of it and wouldnt consider that "failing."

Fire stations were the same way re: air quality prior to the use of direct exhaust capture systems on vehicles!

https://wjla.com/newsletter-daily/du...eagan-national

Dulles’s new concourse E structure was completed

some interesting proposals: Design proposals for Trump's Dulles International Airport overhaul include Zaha Hadid Architects, Adjaye Associates, Grimshaw | News | Archinect

While they won't say it out loud - none of this is encouraged by current MWAA manglement, even as some of the proposals appear to be definite improvements.

+1
I'm stealing that word for future use in SO many ways.

The one thing I find hillario about the whole "we need to keep people movers" argument is the amazing amount of mental, math and word/descriptor gymnastics, whoever is speaking on the topic has to go through. It is not "impossible" to replace them. It would not be "cost prohibitive" to replace them. There aren't "technical reasons" to extend their lives by years (I think I read decades in one article once). Just admit that right now - for fiscal, nostalgia, logistical or just plain planning purposes (heck, is it even a union/employee issue of getting rid of all the movers' operators?) you're not gonna do it right now.

Getting rid of the mobile lounges would have negative impact to the employees in the mobile lounge shop (not just drivers but also mechanics and others, less than 100 total) and that would be a union issue - but like the other issues you mention, not truly insurmountable.

The nice thing about the mobile lounges and plane-mates (there are actually two different types) is that the do provide benefits that buses simply cant provide (no risk of steps to climb/descend, barely any exposure to weather conditions, ability to get crew/pax to/from terminals to planes that are on hard-stands, ability to move many more people than buses). Replacing that capability with entirely new style of mobile lounges probably IS cost-prohibitive, not least because the airlines have to proportionally pay for those costs which will be passed on to PAX in the enplanement fee - making IAD less competitive after many years of successfully getting the enplanement fee down. Once the capital construction plans are completed the lounges can go away easily.

This is silly. Nobody has said it's 'impossible' to replace the mobile lounges. In fact, there's a plan to do exactly that. So, you're demanding that people (and MWAA) "admit" something that their plan already does?

However, plans cost money, and that money needs to come from somewhere. And all of the key stakeholders have agreed on the plan they have.