Colorado Public Radio publishes a reflective exit interview with outgoing Denver International Airport CEO Phil Washington, who is retiring later this summer after five years leading DIA. The piece covers his transit career, DIA’s record growth, the airport’s “never-ending construction,” plans to turn the old underground baggage tunnels into pedestrian walkways between concourses, possible Peña Boulevard changes, federal pressure, security issues, and the airport’s long-term energy needs.
That is the classic Colorado infrastructure farewell tour. The executive gets the thoughtful sit-down. The institution gets the big-picture language. Meanwhile, regular travelers are still dragging luggage through the latest version of “temporary” chaos at an airport that sometimes feels like a permanent construction terrarium with boarding passes.
The Bullet Point Brief
- Washington says DIA was built for 50 million annual passengers and handled 82.4 million last year. Fair point. Growth is real. But passengers do not experience “growth.” They experience cones, walls, detours, train crowding, and the distinct feeling they have wandered into a taxpayer-funded escape room designed by a committee.
- DIA plans to repurpose its underground tunnel system into pedestrian walkways between concourses, creating backup capacity for the airport train system. Washington calls the lack of train redundancy DIA’s “original sin.” Nice theology. Coloradans would settle for fewer infrastructure confessions and more functioning infrastructure.
- The tunnel project could cost somewhere between $300 million and $700 million, with construction slated to start next year and opening by 2029 at the latest. That is quite a range. Nothing reassures taxpayers like a price estimate with a $400 million shrug built in.
- Washington says decisions on Peña Boulevard improvements will come after the NEPA process later this year, and he does not want to prejudge the outcome. That is proper process. It is also another reminder that Colorado infrastructure now moves at the speed of paperwork wearing hiking boots.
- CPR also asked about federal threats involving airports in “sanctuary cities,” perimeter security incidents, and DIA’s long-term energy options, including nuclear, solar, geothermal, storage, and small modular reactors. Translation: the airport is not just an airport anymore. It is a city-sized machine with city-sized problems and a press office.
My Bottom Line
This is not a personal hit on Phil Washington. Running DIA is not like managing a lemonade stand with jet bridges. The airport is huge, growing, complicated, and central to Colorado’s economy.
But public performance matters. DIA is the front door to Colorado, and for years that front door has looked and felt like a public works project that ate another public works project and then asked taxpayers for dessert. Travelers are tired of being told to admire “vision” while they are living inside the damn construction zone.
The Denver airport machine loves phases, visions, plans, tunnels, partnerships, environmental reviews, timelines, and consultant vocabulary. The average Coloradan wants something simpler: get me through the airport without making me feel like I need a hard hat, a Sherpa, and an emotional support spreadsheet.
If Washington is leaving with tunnel vision, fine. The next person needs passenger vision, taxpayer vision, deadline vision, and enough institutional backbone to stop treating endless disruption like weather. Construction may be necessary. Chaos should not be a business model.
Source: Colorado Public Radio
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