Join us for a lookback on 2024 and a sneak peek at what's to come in 2025! Plus our favorite bloopers from the year.
Interested in a career at the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority? See what we have available here: https://www.mwaa.com/careers
Have questions for us? We'd love to hear from you! Send us an email at info@thecapitalrunway.com
For more information, please visit our website at https://thecapitalrunway.com.
Staff:
Tanisha Lewis, VP of DISI
Jaimini Erskine, VP of Marketing & Concessions
Charles Wilson, Co-host/Co-producer
Amanda Ohbayashi, Co-host/Co-producer/Social media producer
Ryan Burdick, Editor/Co-producer
Bong Lee, Graphics
Brian McCoy, Digital Strategy/Co-producer
Sagia Depty, Marketing Lead/Co-producer
[00:00:00] Amanda: Welcome back to The Capital Runway podcast, a special holiday edition. I'm Amanda.
[00:00:09] Charles: I'm Charles. Welcome to The Capital Runway podcast.
[00:00:13] Amanda: Happy holidays, everyone. I hope you guys have been enjoying your time with your families and just wrapping up the year in a really relaxing way. How are you, Charles?
[00:00:22] Charles: Good. This is always the best time of year for me. The food and the family and the celebration is always a lot of fun.
[00:00:30] Amanda: Yes. We are also joined today by our editor extraordinaire Ryan. Hi, Ryan.
[00:00:37] Ryan: Hey, everybody.
[00:00:38] Amanda: How's it going?
[00:00:39] Ryan: It's going great. It's great to be back on The Capital Runway podcast. You've heard me jump in a couple of times this year, so I'll get to weigh in on some of the highlights as well.
[00:00:48] Amanda: Awesome. We have had an extremely busy year.
[00:00:52] Charles: Yes, very much so.
[00:00:54] Amanda: What have been some of your highlights that we've done?
[00:00:57] Charles: Where should we start? [laughs] We've got a long list.
[00:01:02] Amanda: Yes. We've had tons of stuff happening over at DCA, all labeled under our ongoing project of DCA Reimagined, including new restaurants, new concessions, new bathrooms, so much happening.
[00:01:16] Charles: As far as what has opened at DCA, we have Atlas and Zeke's Coffee. We have the new Lego store, Lucky Buns.
[00:01:26] Amanda: Love Lucky Buns.
[00:01:28] Charles: Half Moon-- Yes.
[00:01:30] Amanda: [laughs] Half Moon Empanadas. What about you, Ryan? What have been some of your highlights for DCA?
[00:01:35] Ryan: Capital One Landing has been absolutely incredible. Definitely check that out because I know I'm really curious to see how that does, and I think it's going to be super successful.
[00:01:44] Amanda: Over at Dulles, we also have tons of things happening. We just announced Dulles Next. We have a brand new 14-gate concourse coming that is going to be 46,000 square feet just for concessions. A brand new airline club is going to be joining us. I think it will be United. Spoiler alert. Of course, direct access to the AeroTrain. I don't know if this, but when the AeroTrain station was built, they anticipated building this new concourse. That's why you have to walk from the AeroTrain station to Concourse C/D, but this new concourse is going to be built right above it. You're just going to go up and then you'll be in this new beautiful concourse.
[00:02:29] Ryan: Incredible.
[00:02:31] Charles: We have six new airlines also.
[00:02:33] Amanda: Yes. It's been a banner year for us for new airlines. What are our new airlines?
[00:02:36] Charles: Let's see. Avelo, Aeroméxico, SWISS Airlines, Frontier, Breeze, and Sun Country.
[00:02:42] Amanda: Yes, which I think brings our nonstop destinations to 149 out of Dulles. It's more than any other airport in the region.
[00:02:56] Charles: To say we're growing is an understatement?
[00:02:58] Amanda: Yes. Big year for us.
[00:03:01] Charles: If you've been to Dulles Airport or if you're going to come, make sure you check out the Lego model of Dulles Airport. It's really cool.
[00:03:11] Amanda: I can't believe that was in January.
[00:03:13] Charles: That was one of our feature podcasts. If you haven't seen it yet, it's a really cool model.
[00:03:20] Amanda: That's definitely one of my favorite podcasts that we did this year, talking to Richard all about how he built it and designed it from square one, Lego one. Very cool. Definitely want to check that out.
[00:03:33] Richard: Dulles, for instance, actually before the base, before anything else, I started with the columns. I started with a single column and trying to nail down the exact proportion, the height, that distinct horse head curvature. I built all the columns first. Then I went back and started from the base up once I had the spacing and proportions.
[00:03:56] Ryan: If you're traveling this holiday season in the historic terminal, you want to look on the west side, which is the right side if you're getting dropped off, and you'll be able to see the Lego model for yourself.
[00:04:07] Charles: Yes. We got several new restaurants that have opened up at Dulles, including Freshii, Bagels & More, and Gatsby.
[00:04:15] Amanda: I love all those places. They're delicious.
[00:04:19] Ryan: The Freshii seating is great. I don't know if anyone's been able to sit down yet, but it's just a great spot in Concours B.
[00:04:25] Amanda: Oh, yes. They do smoothies and salad bowls, things like that.
[00:04:29] Charles: Yes. If you want a good burger before you hop on a plane, you got Five Guys now.
[00:04:36] Amanda: Yes.
[00:04:37] Ryan: Fan favorite.
[00:04:39] Amanda: Something else that we did at Dulles that was my favorite part of the year was welcoming the Lufthansa A380 this summer. I love that aircraft. It's so big and beautiful. That was a really fun event. We got to bring out our friends and family members and some local avgeeks and really had a really nice time welcoming that. Did that at one point over the summer, we had three A380s all at the airport on dailies? It was Lufthansa, British Airways, and Emirates.
[00:05:10] Charles: I was actually able to see one take-off.
[00:05:13] Ryan: For everyone wondering that has a little bit of FOMO, the way that you can get in on those events is you should follow Dulles Airport on Instagram and Facebook because that's where we'll post when we have opportunities like that. They are in high demand. If you see it, make sure you submit for it because you don't want to miss out.
[00:05:30] Amanda: Definitely. Charles, what's been going on the DISI team?
[00:05:35] Charles: Wow. Where can I start? We've done so much. I think we can talk about Small Business University, where we invited small businesses in to talk about not only how to win a contract, but how to be successful throughout the life of the contract. It was a 13-week program that we did in conjunction with Howard University at the MLK Library in DC. I believe we graduated over 15 small businesses with this course. We're looking forward to the next cohort, which will start in January.
[00:06:08] Amanda: Okay. Very cool. How do people sign up or learn more about that?
[00:06:11] Charles: The way that people can easily find it is just go to Google and type in 'Small Business University,' and the link will pop up. I believe the application stays open until mid-December.
[00:06:22] Ryan: We can link that in the show notes below as well.
[00:06:25] Charles: Okay. Then we feature two new art walks featuring student artwork from the DC, Virginia area. We have students come out with their parents and their faculty and some local politicians to celebrate their work and to take that blank wall space that we had at both airports and decorate it with student art walks. That was pretty cool as well.
[00:06:50] Amanda: There's one in each airport, right?
[00:06:52] Charles: Yes. Then we've published our first-ever ESG report. I'm sure you guys remember when we had Courtney Gore come in and talk about the report and how that was a major accomplishment for the airport.
[00:07:08] Courtney Gore: The rollout of the Environmental, Social, and Governance report, that's what ESG stands for, is really important and significant, especially for US airports, a really big deal for MWAA, for the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, for several reasons. There's a growing emphasis on sustainability, on corporate responsibility, and also accountability from leadership. We're really excited because this report is an excellent demonstration of the hard work of our team members, but also to the greater aviation industry about how we are committed to all of those different themes I shared before in our ESG Impact report.
[00:07:48] Charles: We're looking forward to next year as well.
[00:07:51] Amanda: Yes, absolutely. We also had National Apprentice Week a few weeks ago, and four of our apprentices were actually recognized at the White House in a fun ceremony with the acting Secretary of Labor, I believe.
[00:08:06] Charles: Yes, that was pretty cool.
[00:08:07] Amanda: Yes, that's awesome.
[00:08:09] Charles: For Hispanic Heritage Month, we actually hosted a great event, Descubra Dulles. There was a media day that we had at Dulles Airport where we invited local media that represents the Hispanic community to just talk about what we're doing to reach out to the Hispanic community regarding small business opportunities, concession opportunities. It was a great event, very festive as well. We really enjoyed that.
[00:08:32] Ryan: Yes. Plus, you even got Copa and Avianca Airlines to join. That was really cool to hear directly from flights and their interest in the community to fly them around Latin America.
[00:08:42] Charles: Yes. We started off the year talking about a very important topic that's not only important to our airport, but our airports across the country, and that is Human Trafficking Awareness Month, making our customers and passengers aware of this important issue and just bringing awareness to the issue so that we protect the public from any unfortunate circumstances.
[00:09:06] Amanda: Yes, absolutely. Ryan, what were some of your highlights of the year so far?
[00:09:12] Ryan: Highlights from the year so far? I'm really lucky and I get to edit and listen to every one of these episodes. I really liked hearing from DCA this year, because I know we tend to focus on Dulles International Airport because that's where we're expanding, that's where there's physical room to grow. With DCA, you have a lot of change behind the scenes that's happening there. We got to talk to Danielle Morgan, and we were speaking to her in March for Women in Aviation and just Women's History Month in general. I love to hear behind the scenes. She makes so many things happen for the airport manager and connects the dots and creates new things and experiences that you all end up seeing in front of the airport. I loved hearing everything she had to say about what she enjoys about the challenge of that and also how she's been able to have a career here at MWAA.
[00:09:57] Danielle Morgan: Certainly, I've been here 17 years now so there've been a lot of changes. I think two things that really strike me, one is just the change of the experience of the airport. Nowadays, we're looking to make the customer experience more comfortable. You see restaurants that have more local flavor, just creating a sense of place in the airports, which I don't think was around when I first started here. The other big significant change, I think is the technology changes that we've seen in my time, especially when it comes to communicating with a customer. When I first started in customer service, it was pamphlets, brochures that customers filled out for their customer comments.
We did snail mail back to the customer. Certainly, we've come a long way to then go into email and then social media. That was one of my first things for the airport's authority was I did Twitter when Twitter first started along with a zillion other things. Today now, it's grown so much. There's so many other digital channels that it needed to move to a whole nother department to handle that communication. We've really just seen with the increase in changes in technology, just a greater ability to communicate with our customers in the moment.
[00:11:32] Amanda: Absolutely. Speaking of DCA behind the scenes, we welcomed a new airport manager, Terry Lyric. We're excited to have him join us hopefully on a future podcast, but just at DCA in general. He's got great things going on.
[00:11:48] Ryan: Yes. Another favorite episode on the topic of DCA was talking to Chris Paolino who was the acting airport manager before he was selected. He just has such a good perspective on both airports and working for MWAA. He's had such an interesting career. It really is inspirational to hear how somebody like that can come in and really get a big-picture view.
[00:12:09] Chris Paolino: I've had the fortune while I've been here to be able to move around to a number of different roles. I started in public affairs built on my political background where I was doing communications and public affairs, spent about three years there. While I was in public affairs, I had the opportunity to work on a number of things. Snowstorms come to mind and the impact that it has on travelers. I got to spend far more time standing out in the cold being interviewed, talking about delays.
I think I perfected the line, "Call your airline for the most up-to-date flight information." I think the things that I got to work on in public affairs that were always the most exciting were the things that were positive stories. It was new airline launches. It was talking about the new shops and concessions, the opportunities that were coming for passengers at the airports. I also had the opportunity to work on the rollout of our rebranding when we rolled out our new logo.
As part of that, I got to work on and create the airport's authority's passenger pledge. That's something I'm particularly proud of and that definitive statement that our mission here is to serve our passengers. We're going to do that in working in conjunction with the airlines and working in conjunction with our stakeholders, working in conjunction with the communities we serve. Ultimately, we work when the passengers are having that positive experience flying through. They're the ones who are driving the commerce.
They're the ones who are driving the economic development. They're the ones who are driving the community gain both here and at the destinations that they're traveling to.
[00:13:42] Ryan: How about for you too? What are two of your favorite interviews that you've conducted this year?
[00:13:48] Charles: Jumpstart was really cool for me. Just to hear from other airports around the country about how they operate and how they do business was really neat.
[00:13:55] Amanda: Joining us is Scott from ACI. You are the VP of Communications for ACI.
[00:14:02] Scott: That's correct.
[00:14:03] Amanda: You run this conference, correct?
[00:14:06] Scott: I am one of many ACI staff that are here to support the conference. This is one of our special events that we do every year. It's one that the industry really looks forward to having because it's a really good chance for airports to connect with their airline partners and talk about future service options.
[00:14:22] Amanda: If you had to describe Jumpstart in one sentence, what would it be?
[00:14:27] Scott: Jumpstart is speed dating for airports and airlines. It's a chance for them to connect and to plan for the future.
[00:14:33] Charles: What feedback have you gotten so far this week?
[00:14:36] Scott: There's been lots of really good energy and good discussions that are happening. I think coming out of the pandemic, we're now seeing passenger traffic back to nearly pre-pandemic levels and people are really optimistic about travel. There's a lot of demand out there and everyone is making a good case for why more airlines should be servicing more airports. There's been a lot of high energy at this conference.
[00:14:58] Amanda: We heard that this is the most attended one of these.
[00:15:01] Scott: This is a record-breaking event for us. Over the last couple days that we've been here, there have been almost 1600 meetings between airports and airlines. There's more than 200 airports here. There's 33 airlines here and highest attendance we've ever had at this conference. We're very excited for it.
[00:15:21] Charles: That was a really good event and it was like this round-robin of conversations that we had all day just to hear different perspectives and how they all work together.
[00:15:32] Amanda: I really enjoyed our live podcast episodes in the airports. I think that was really fun and cool, and it was a different way.
[00:15:40] Charles: We need to do more of that.
[00:15:41] Amanda: Absolutely. Just being in the terminals as we were chatting with various people who work there and keep the places running, those were really enjoyable for me. Especially Ken, who is the mobile lounge driver, so cool.
[00:15:55] Charles: That was fun. [laughs]
[00:15:55] Amanda: Love him.
[00:15:56] Ryan: That's one of my favorite things about this podcast. I love that you hear these behind-the-scenes and inspirational things because what's really cool about where we work is you guys get to see it too. It's so easy to be inspired by the physical location because it's always changing. It's so dynamic. Then you hear somebody like Ken Smith and you really hear how he's gotten a view of it for two decades and you are just like, "Man, you've had a whole career here. You've met the coolest people."
Also, he understands the mobile lounges, where they started, and how they were designed. He can see how that impacted the industry and how they're still useful today.
[00:16:31] Ken Smith: First of all, Dulles Airport is very unique, and it was designed with the mobile lounges in mind. Because of that, at the beginning, people loved mobile lounges, but then they travel other airports. They have the underground system. Dulles is behind times. However, when they come here, they'll have mixed feelings. Like you say, they'll say, "Why are these things still here?" You get other people that come, "Man, I love these lounges. I hope they never leave."
The thing about it, trains can go down, trains can break down, but these mobile lounges, no. Don't get me wrong, we have our issues too, but they are always there for you. They give you a unique experience that you won't get at any other airport. Make it as smooth as possible. I tell all new people, "Give them a Cadillac ride."
[00:17:21] Amanda: Yes, definitely. He offers such a cool perspective.
[00:17:24] Charles: One part that I really enjoyed about those conversations was talking to the recent college grad who's now-
[00:17:32] Amanda: In the ramp tower.
[00:17:33] Charles: -air traffic control.
[00:17:34] Amanda: She's a ramp tower controller.
[00:17:35] Charles: Yes, ramp tower controller. It was just pretty cool that she was able to start a career right out of college doing that interesting and important work.
[00:17:44] Amanda: Absolutely.
[00:17:46] Speaker 1: Funny enough, actually yesterday, someone messaged me and they're like, "Oh, what are you doing over there by Dulles?" I'm like, "Oh, I'm a ramp tower controller." They're like, "No way. That's crazy. You're actually working traffic? You've been out of college for three months." I'm like, "Yes. I get to talk to planes." It's pretty cool. A lot of people out of school, that's what they want to do. They want to get out and immediately start doing what they went to school for.
I can say even people who don't entirely know the aviation field or don't know what a ramp tower control position is, they're still like, "Oh, my gosh, you actually get to do it." That's been really nice. I can say my first week, it's telling people like, "Oh, my gosh, you will not believe what just happened. I can talk to planes. I can do all these things." One really cool thing I can actually say that I get to brag about to all my friends is one thing we have to do here is the A380 has to do their-- The operations truck has to follow the 380 out.
My first week, they let me get in the operations truck and follow the 380 on takeoff. I was the giddy little new kid like, "Oh, my gosh, guys, guess what?" That was really cool. I posted that and all my friends were jealous and they're like, "We want to come. Can we come to Dulles now?" That was pretty cool.
[00:19:00] Ryan: Speaking of just being mobile this year, we've been to more outside the studio locations this year than any other year so far. That's kudos to you, Amanda, and Charles for saying, "Let's hit the ground running." It was so fun to hear from the airport employees at the airport. You can tell that for MWAA, that culture of being active and going to each site is just the big impact that we can have for you, the travelers as well.
[00:19:24] Amanda: We've had a lot of successes and we've also had a lot of flubs or bloopers we'll say. Roll the clip.
[00:19:33] Charles: We also got a new Lego store at Dulles as well.
[00:19:37] Amanda: No.
[00:19:37] Charles: No?
[00:19:38] Charles: Okay. It has Lego there.
[00:19:39] Amanda: The Lego installation.
[00:19:42] Charles: Oh, the model. All right.
[00:19:49] Amanda: Nobody could have expected that.
[00:19:50] Ryan: No, yet. Give me a lead-in. Sorry.
[00:19:54] Amanda: Oh. We have the Female History Month.
[laughter]
[00:19:59] Charles: Yes, all the females that work here. [unintelligible 00:20:01]
[00:20:03] Amanda: Speaking of Women's History Month and Women in Aviation, today we are talking to Danielle Morgan.
[00:20:10] Ryan: Then the last one, how about is that's spot on center.
[00:20:14] Amanda: I will never say that center is spot on.
[laughter]
[00:20:18] Amanda: You may use that-
[00:20:20] Charles: Delete that right now.
[00:20:21] Amanda: -[crosstalk] as you need to-
[00:20:22] Charles: Time out.
[00:20:23] Amanda: -in the podcast.
[laughter]
[00:20:24] Charles: Time out. Low blow. I don't know what's going on here.
[00:20:31] Ryan: I think I get the honor to ask the last question. I have to ask Amanda and Charles, where are you flying to next?
[00:20:37] Amanda: Where am I flying to next? I have a flight booked to Ontario, California for a conference for AAAE, so that will be fun. I don't have any 2025 travel booked yet, but maybe Napa.
[00:20:52] Ryan: Oh, that would be great. I went this year, so I can give you my recs.
[00:20:55] Amanda: I love it.
[00:20:56] Charles: I think as a family, we're going to fly to Iceland.
[00:21:00] Amanda: Oh.
[00:21:00] Charles: Yes. I'm going to finally have those hot dogs you were talking about in that past episode. We're looking forward to that.
[00:21:08] Amanda: Iceland's very cool.
[00:21:09] Charles: Yes.
[00:21:09] Ryan: I'm flying to Michigan for the holidays, so mine is a simple answer there.
[00:21:13] Amanda: I don't know about you guys, but I'm tired. This has been a busy year. We did so much, but it was all so much fun and we did such great work, so congrats, guys.
[00:21:22] Charles: It was a lot of fun, and you guys make it fun too.
[00:21:26] Amanda: I'm excited for what's to come next year. We've got tons of new things planned, new airlines, new concessions, new everything, so it's going to be a good year.
[00:21:35] Charles: Yes, and new podcast episodes.
[00:21:37] Amanda: New podcasts. Tell us what you want to hear. We would love to hear from you guys. Tell us what topics you want to hear about and people you want to hear from. Yes, tell us. You can email us at info@thecapitalrunway.com.
[00:21:53] Ryan: I think that's it. Thank you all for listening to The Capital Runway podcast. You'll be hearing from us next year.
[00:21:59] Amanda: Thanks.
[music]
[00:22:06] [END OF AUDIO]