I love being somewhere else, but I rarely love getting there.
If teleportation existed, it would be my mode of travel. Because my state of mind while journeying is “I really don’t want to be here,” I appreciate things that are efficient or beautiful, and especially those that are efficient and beautiful.
It’s why my least favorite major airport in the world is Frankfurt. It fails both tests spectacularly. DCA, though, with Terminal 2’s lofty Cesar Pelli vaults and convenience, passes.
Despite being far from the nation’s busiest or most important airport, Washington Dulles is maybe one of the most griped about because it comes so close yet falls so frustratingly short.
The Eero Saarinen-designed main terminal remains the most elegant I’ve seen in all my travels. More than six decades since its completion, it looks as if it could have been built today. (And yet we instinctively know it’s not.) I love pulling up to its swooping facade. The typeface used throughout is top-notch. The TSA atrium, train shuttle hall, and even the above-ground Metro station are all very cool. From the moment you pull up until you board the underground trains, Dulles is a great airport. It is beautiful and efficient.
But step beyond that, and you’ll find one of the dingiest, most frustrating experiences. The train shuttles do not go to all the terminals. The United terminals aren’t even outdated—no human should ever have had to use them. Checked baggage takes forever. And then there are the “people movers”—those space-age-esque moon rovers that shuttle people from terminal to terminal. You can avoid them if you’re flying domestic by walking to a train shuttle. But if you are arriving from abroad, you have no choice. And the Metro takes an hour-plus from the city center because it has no express option.
Now, the airport is in the news because of a proposed $22 billion overhaul that has become one of the trophy infrastructure projects of the White House and a lightning rod in the aviation world.
When the news dropped, the first thing I wanted to do was text Ned Russell for his take. Luckily, he quickly fired off a newsletter from his Substack, Airport Architecture, that I found shockingly calming. Ignore the renderings, he says; they’re meaningless. Also, it’s really United’s plan.
Okay, phew, because my first rule for any Dulles rehab would be to LEAVE SAARINEN ALONE.
Instead, Ned zeros in on the second staggering aspect. The cost. Not only does that $22 billion seem awfully high, it currently is debt-financed, which essentially means flying in and out of Dulles could get prohibitively expensive. That’s because costs per enplanement—the fees for passengers on board each plane that gets passed on to you—are projected to go from $12.77 this year to $90!! Rising enplanement fees were already squeezing airlines—especially ULCCs—but that’s a number that could break things. (United, Ned notes, plans to have that number become lower by expanding the number of passengers at Dulles.)
The main problem with the plan, if we can go back to the beginning of this column, is that it creates a grand solution for much smaller problems. Dulles as a whole did need to become more visually pleasing, but not to this degree. It’s like a beautiful person going in for a little nose job and coming out looking like Catwoman. And it did need to become more efficient, but in two simple ways. Getting rid of the people movers and an express train from central DC with maybe a stop or two in the suburbs. (There were probably some airside efficiencies needed as well, but that’s beyond my expertise.)
Oh well.
I’m not quite sure what to make of the dust-up at Amanvari, the buzzed-about new Aman property in Mexico. For the unfamiliar, a popular travel creator and hotel reviewer booked a stay and secured permission from the property to film while staying (so long as he didn’t film other guests). Upon arrival, though, he was turned away, and the hotel threatened to call the police on him. Skift has a clear and detailed write-up of the incident. Online, it’s largely playing out as a sign that Aman has lost its touch. And it comes at the same time as the news that the owners of the Turks & Caicos properties Aman operates as Amanyara want to terminate their contract with Aman because of a dip in quality of service and because of plans to build a Janu property nearby. Janu is Aman’s less expensive sister brand.
A lot to unpack in the latest Airbnb earnings. First is that it’s not surprising Airbnb is seeing early success in adding hotels to its platform. There are now many destinations where access to short-term rentals is restricted, so when you open Airbnb and see hotels, that’s what you’re going to book. CEO Brian Chesky also claimed that AI is speeding up product rollouts that allow the company to more nimbly pursue its expansion plans. (One of those is the option for airport pickup. Has any reader used that yet?) Airbnb, Chesky has said, wants to be the one-stop app for all things travel. Now, it plans to go beyond travel. Okay?
It’s not all upside for luxury brands getting into the branded condo business! Residents of the Aston Martin Residences in downtown Miami claim that the two-year-old building is riddled with construction and design defects.
One of the funniest stories in travel (if you haven’t had to go to Europe recently) has been the EU’s refusal to admit there has been anything wrong with the rollout of the EES, its new biometric border tech. It has instead insisted that the tech works great because there has been no increase in wait time. Well, Politico dug into it, and that’s because when the lines get too long, airports are just switching it off and processing visitors manually!
I really wish the mainstream press would stop being so credulous! A few weeks ago, it was the New York Times bleating that Delta’s business basic fares would make flying business cheaper when all reporting has shown the opposite. Now it’s Bloomberg repeating JetBlue’s line that its fare structure is “simplified” when anybody looking at it would only think it’s overly complicated.
Midwest Antiquarian@Eric_Erins
Does anybody remember when the entire plane had to watch the same inflight movie? I explained this to a zoomer once and they didn’t believe me
Circe @vocalcry
6 hr international flight: here are five meals and 500 movies to watch 6 hr domestic flight: sorry there’s turbulence so we can’t do water service, we actually don’t serve food, and also there are no TVs 😀
1:24 PM · Jul 27, 2026 · 201K Views
78 Replies · 69 Reposts · 4.17K Likes
Nobody, and I mean nobody, wants to deal with an airline’s AI concierge. The stats back it up, and so does every anecdote. They waste time, make customers annoyed, and just come across as an obstacle to getting us to what we want (an actual human to solve our problem).
I think we’re a bit late to the whole St. Tropez is overrun with tourists, but apparently that was one of the topics du jour this week. Now, influencers are the ones being accused of “ruining” it as if it hadn’t had issues for quite a long time.
The attacks on London’s pub culture are very sad, but so is the idea that we should refer to people standing and drinking as “vertical drinking.”
STORIES I LOVED OR WISH I’D DONE
I’m kind of tired of the “I always lose weight when I go to Europe” discourse. But the Wall Street Journal did a nice job of weaving a bunch of anecdotes into a narrative that gets at why this discourse is so enduring–it kind of defies everything the experts are telling you.
The story of the JetBlue flight that mysteriously went into freefall is an excellent Sunday read if you’re looking to kill some time today.
This Times story (free) about the wonder of Cap Ferret on France’s Atlantic coast, which I always get confused in writing with Cap Ferrat, which is on the Med and less appealing to me. The peg for writing about Cap Ferret now? It has its first five star hotel.
I have no interest in going to a Savannah Bananas game, and have found their ubiquity online borderline annoying, BUT I found this breakdown of their business and their attempt to cut out ticket resellers a nice read. And maybe a lesson for others.
This Guardian piece on writers’ favorite rivers to explore in England.
Drought in Europe is again roiling the river cruise industry, with one ship running aground
DCA’s Terminal 1 is getting revamped
American Airlines ends 24 hour refunds on tickets booked within a week of travel
And cuts free upgrades to business
Meanwhile, the plans to renovate Union Station have been tossed aside
Rome’s airport is planning a $12 billion expansion in time for 2033, anniversary of Christ’s death
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