WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is expected Wednesday to announce a $22 billion renovation of Washington Dulles International Airport that will end the use of the widely disliked “people movers," the mobile lounges that have been used for decades to shuttle travelers to and from the main terminal.
The airport makeover would expand a long list of renovation projects the Republican president is pursuing to leave a lasting mark on the Washington region after his term ends in January 2029. Among other undertakings, he has plans to build a new White House ballroom along with a towering triumphal arch near the Lincoln Memorial.
In place of the people movers, the airport will add a new passenger train and more moving walkways, and the parking lot will be moved closer to the main terminal, according to a White House official who shared details of the Republican president's plan under condition of anonymity before an announcement.
Trump will announce his plans at an Oval Office event Wednesday afternoon alongside Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy.
Dulles, located in northern Virginia, is about 25 miles (40 kilometers) from downtown Washington and run by the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, which also operates Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. The project will be financed by the airports authority and the airlines serving Dulles, the White House official said.
Dulles is one of three airports that serve the Washington region. Dulles is the primary international airport serving the region although Baltimore Washington International Airport, which is farther away than Dulles, also offers overseas flights. Reagan National is the most convenient of the three airports, which makes it popular with members of Congress and local residents, but it primarily handles domestic flights.
Trump said in December that Dulles needs to be redesigned because “it's not a good airport.”
The president, a former real estate developer, said back then that the Dulles building was “incorrectly designed.” He nonetheless praised Eero Saarinen, the Finnish-American architect and designer of the airport's main terminal.
“We’re going to turn that around and we’re going to make Dulles airport -- serving Washington and Virginia, Maryland, etc. -- we’re gonna make that into something really spectacular," Trump said at the Cabinet meeting in December. "We have an amazing plan for it.”
Dulles has relied on people movers since it opened in 1962.
Designed by Chrysler Corp., the vehicles shuttle passengers between the terminal and aircraft. The airport operates a fleet of 19 mobile lounges, each capable of carrying up to 102 passengers, according to its website.
When Dulles debuted, the airport touted the system as a major convenience. Passengers, it said, “had to walk only 200 feet once they entered the terminal until they were seated in a mobile lounge for the short trip directly to their aircraft,” a service it described as unique to Dulles.
But they have become one of passengers' least favorite aspects of transiting through Dulles.
One of the mobile lounges crashed in November, sending 18 people to the hospital.
Dulles began a multibillion-dollar construction program in 2000 to begin to address future passenger demand. Major projects included two new parking garages, a fourth runway, a new concourse, a new Air Traffic Control tower, pedestrian walks and an airport train system, according to the airports authority website.
Associated Press writers Rio Yamat in Las Vegas and Josh Funk in Omaha, Neb., contributed to this report.
FILE - President Donald Trump boards Air Force One at Dulles International Airport in Dulles, Va., March 2, 2018. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)
FILE - A motorcade with President Donald Trump aboard drives on the tarmac at Dulles International Airport in Dulles, Va., July 22, 2017. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)
FILE - A sign of Washington Dulles International Airport station is seen during the opening of new Silver Line Extension at Washington Dulles International Airport, in Chantilly, Va., Nov. 15, 2022. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)
LEGE-CAP FERRET, France (AP) — An uncontained wildfire four times the size of Paris threatened to surge again in southwest France on Wednesday — as three firefighters died in Greece and crews across southern Europe confronted a punishing mix of heat, drought and strong winds.
The deaths on Crete brought a fatal new dimension to a wildfire emergency stretching from the Atlantic coast to the eastern Mediterranean. At the peak of the evacuations, a third of a million people were driven from homes and vacation sites in France and Spain.
In France’s Gironde region, the country’s biggest blaze had not spread during a calm night, authorities said. But as temperatures approached 40 C (104 F) Wednesday afternoon and winds strengthened, the reprieve threatened to be short-lived.
The landscape was so combustible that investigators believe routine brush-clearing work near a high-voltage line may have sparked the inferno, even though the work appeared to comply with regulations.
At the command center in Lège, firefighters bent over maps spread across a car hood, tracking three danger zones: northern Cap-Ferret; the wooded corridor around Marcheprime, Cestas and Saint-Jean-d’Illac; and a military site near Martignas, where a major outbreak forced a large deployment.
More than 2,200 firefighters and over 20 aircraft remained mobilized, backed by crews from across France and European partners.
“We strike quickly and strike hard at any new smoke emissions,” Gironde fire commander Matthieu Jomain said.
Beyond the command center, civilians were trying to hold the line themselves. At Souge, volunteers flooded the edges of dirt tracks while a local digger driver plowed through still-burning soil, trying to keep flames from crossing back when the expected west wind arrived. In Lacanau, residents pumped water from a lake into tanks headed for hot spots and firefighters’ cisterns.
“If one day the fire starts in our neck of the woods, I know very well that all the people here would do the same for us,” said Flavien Dubuch, 33, who drove from Saint-Émilion with his father to help.
The advance of major fires in the Landes and Var regions has been halted. That left Gironde as France’s biggest remaining wildfire battle, Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said.
The Gironde fire forced 220,000 people to flee at the peak of the crisis. Tens of thousands have since been allowed home, but authorities warned that the danger had not passed.
Extreme heat strips moisture from vegetation and drives down humidity, turning grasses, brush and forest litter into faster-burning fuel.
Investigators believe contractors working near a high-voltage line for power-grid operator Enedis ignited the blaze while using a brush-cutting machine, Bordeaux prosecutor Renaud Gaudeul said.
Météo-France said Wednesday would be the hottest and driest day of the week, with elevated wildfire danger across every region of France. Drought now covers mainland France and Corsica, with soils nearing the record dryness reached in August 2022.
Smoke from the Gironde and Landes fires also pushed particulate pollution higher across both departments, regional air-quality monitors said.
Gironde authorities ordered 4,000 more people out of tourist sites along the Atlantic coast on Tuesday, widening what may be France’s largest peacetime evacuation.
“The situation remains complicated. That’s clear. We’re not out of the woods,” said Gironde prefect Sophie Brocas, who also authorized 60,000 evacuees to return to three Bordeaux suburbs untouched by fire.
The opposing movements — thousands ordered out of coastal resorts as others returned with mobile phones on and emergency bags packed — captured how precarious the situation remains.
The disruption was spreading beyond the burn zone into Bordeaux’s peak tourism season.
Edouard le Grix de la Salle, who runs Château du Grand Verdus with his brother, said official appeals to avoid the region threatened its wine-tourism trade. “How did they not think about protecting that sector?” he told The Associated Press.
At one point the Gironde blaze created a black thundercloud, electrified and lit from within, that generated lightning, violent winds and new fires beyond the original front. The pyrocumulonimbus was the first recorded in France.
Two firefighters died Wednesday while battling a wildfire in the Rethymno region of Crete, Greece’s fire department said. They were among about 125 firefighters confronting flames fanned by strong winds, with four helicopters and four water-dropping planes deployed.
The circumstances of their deaths were not immediately clear. The department said they died “in the line of duty to protect the lives and property of citizens and the natural environment.”
A third firefighter was found dead later Wednesday outside the perimeter of a separate wildfire in the Peloponnese.
At the height of the crisis, roughly 330,000 people were driven from homes and vacation sites across France and Spain.
Tens of thousands of people began returning home in central Spain after firefighters made progress around Madrid and Ávila. Evacuation orders were lifted for about 20,000 people in the Madrid region, while stay-at-home restrictions ended for another 14,000.
But 10,000 people remain under evacuation orders in Castellón, where a fire was still out of control as Spain braced for its fourth heat wave of the summer.
More than 1,160 square kilometers (448 square miles) have burned across France this year, according to the Interior Ministry.
Europe is the world’s fastest-warming continent, warming at more than twice the global average, according to the European Union’s Copernicus climate service. Western Europe recorded its hottest June on record, with extreme heat and widespread dryness contributing to the spread and intensification of fires in France and Spain, Copernicus said.
Adamson reported from Paris. Elena Becatoros in Athens, Suman Naishadham in Madrid, Alex Turnbull in Souge, France, and John Leicester and Masha Macpherson in Paris contributed.
Wildfires advances near Le Proge region, western France, Thursday, July 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Caroline Blumberg)
A fire burns in a forest near Claouey, during wildfires in southwestern France, Wednesday, July 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Emma Da Silva)
A car burned by a wildfire sits in Piedralaves, Ávila province, Spain, as the fire continues to spread, Tuesday, July 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
Firefighters use controlled burning to halt a wildfire that continues to spread near Cebreros, Ávila province, Spain, Tuesday, July 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
Firefighters battle a blaze outside Lanton, during wildfires in southwestern France, Tuesday, July 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Emma Da Silva)
A De Havilland Canada Dash 8-400 drops fire retardant over a forest near Saint-Jean-d'Illac, during wildfires in southwestern France, Tuesday, July 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Emma Da Silva)
Firefighters battle a blaze outside Lanton, during wildfires in southwestern France, Tuesday, July 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Emma Da Silva)
