Washington Dulles International Airport passengers. Dulles was once assigned the airport code DIA, with each letter corresponding to the initials of Dulles International Airport. However, when handwritten, it was often misread as DCA, the code for nearby Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. It was later revised to IAD to avoid confusion. The airport's terminal complex consists of a main terminal and two midfield terminal buildings: Concourses A/B and C/D. The entire terminal complex has 123 gates and 16 hardstand locations from which passengers can board or disembark using the airport's plane mate vehicles. Conceived in early planning sessions in 1959, Dulles is one of
Washington Dulles International Airport Prince George's County, Maryland into an airport. The current site was selected by President Eisenhower in 1958; the Dulles name was chosen by Eisenhower's aviation advisor Pete Quesada, who later served as the first head of the Federal Aviation Administration. As a result of the site selection, the unincorporated, largely African-American community of Willard, which once stood in the airport's current footprint, was demolished, and 87 property owners had their holdings condemned. Dulles was also built over a lesser known airport named Blue Ridge Airport, chartered in 1938 by the U.S.. The airport was Loudoun County's first official airport consisting