b'46 DCARUNWAYSFlexibility for Late Arrivals Airport officials assured airlines that the Operations Department would do its best to accommodate arrivals delayed by bad weather. If a plane was going to be only 10 or 15 minutes late, Operations would ask the project contractor to keep the runway open to receive that flight. After the runway was closed for the night, late-arriving flights had the option of using Runway 15-33, or diverting to nearby Dulles International (IAD). Most airlines also had other pre-established diversion airports on the East Coast they could use. After construction began in April 2023, weekly progress meetings were held with MWAA and other stakeholders, usually on Tuesdays at 7 a.m. Attendees included representatives from the airports Safety, Quality Control and Operations departments, as well as team leaders from CMT and Lagan Aviation, the primary contractor. Rebuilding the XOne of the biggest challenges was planning work at the intersection of runways 1-19 and 15-33, because it required shutting down both runways for several hours. We had to establish separate ground rules for this, Thuma remarks. This was critical to stakeholders and the airlines. We asked them for the best time of year to shut down, for both the first and second construction seasons.Crews also installed new centerline lights during the project.The first shutdown started in early June 2023 and lasted to mid-July 2023, spanning 42 days. During this hard closure period, both runways were out of service from 12 a.m. to 5:30 a.m. Nightly closures during the second construction season occurred from late May to early June 2024The airlines knew far in advance that these runways would be shut down during those periods, Thuma advises. They also made sacrifices, using smaller aircraft that could hold fewer people during those periods. Prepping the FieldAs primary contractor for the project, Lagan Aviation worked closely with MWAA and the DCA Airfield Operations Department to ensure construction was performed in a timely manner each night. The company, which specializes in paving commercial and military airfields, spent four months planning and coordinating with project stakeholders to prepare for the start of construction on April 17, 2023. Congratulations Although the firm is headquartered in Belfast, Northern Ireland, its U.S. division, based in Sterling, VA, was in charge of this project. to MWAA on the successful runway rehabilitation!Basically, each night was a mini project, CMTishonoredtohaveservedaspartnerstostates Lagan Operations Director James MWAA for decades and to have been a part of thisKeogh. We had to mill out 800 tons of transformational project. asphalt, and take away 800 tons of the old asphalt off site. @cmtengrs | cmtengr.com To speed the process, crews used a special milling machine that could mill down the full 8-inch depth in a single pass. JAMES KEOGHJuly | August 2025AirportImprovement.com'