Overview
The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA) operates Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) and Washington Dulles International (IAD) airports and the Dulles Toll Road. It was created by a Virginia–District of Columbia compact and is governed by a 17-member Board of Directors. The Governor of Virginia appoints seven members, the DC Mayor four, the Governor of Maryland three and the President of the United States three. The Authority is self-supporting: airline rates and charges, parking, concessions and other airport revenue fund the aviation side, and toll revenue funds the Dulles Corridor side. Under its permit and operating agreement with VDOT, MWAA runs the Dulles Toll Road through 2058, keeps toll revenue separate from its other funds, and uses it to repay the debt that financed the Metrorail Silver Line.
Two big changes are under way. At Dulles, the board voted on August 19, 2026 to add $15.5B to the capital construction budget, bringing the 'Revitalizing Washington Dulles International Airport' programme to $19.9B over 15 years. Concourse E, a 14-gate building, opens in October 2026. At Reagan National, operations are still shaped by the January 2025 midair collision between an American Airlines regional flight and a U.S. Army helicopter, which killed 67 people. After it, the FAA rerouted helicopters and reduced arrivals on the main runway.
Technology is run by the Office of Technology and Digital Strategy under EVP Goutam Kundu. It covers enterprise IT, cybersecurity, radio and wireless, data centers and networks, and MWAA Labs, which builds products in-house. A reorganization proposed in September 2026 would move GIS and business-transformation work under it. For a Dell seller, MWAA is a large, capital-rich buyer. Its IT spending shows up as task orders on existing IT contracts and as 'rider' purchases on other governments' competitively awarded contracts, not as open RFPs for hardware.
- Office of Technology and Digital Strategy (EVP and Chief Information and Digital Strategy Officer Goutam Kundu) is the requesting office for IT, radio, wireless and business-systems contracts and the primary technology relationship
- Office of Supply Chain Management runs procurement; its Procurement and Contracts, Operations group handles IT buying, and solicitations are posted in the MWAA Contract Lifecycle Management System
- Hardware and software flow largely as task orders on standing IT contracts held by integrators and resellers (e.g., Disys Solutions, Iron Bow Technologies, ThunderCat Technology), so those partners are the practical route in
- Contracting Manual rider provisions let MWAA buy on other governments' competitively awarded contracts (VITA for Motorola radios; Fairfax County Public Schools for AT&T wireless, recommended September 2026), so a cooperative contract with a rider clause is a fast lane
- Board of Directors approval is required for contracts over $3M or for less-than-full-and-open awards over $200K; the board meets roughly every two months (most recently September 16, 2026)
Where Dell Can Play
- Go in through the task-order channel. MWAA's Q1–Q2 2026 IT orders (SecNet servers, VMware for the SecNet refresh, data-center firewalls, Wi-Fi 7) ran through Disys Solutions, Iron Bow and ThunderCat. Align with those partners to put PowerEdge and Dell storage behind the SecNet and data-center refresh rather than waiting for an open RFP.
- Lead with a rider-ready contract. The Contracting Manual lets MWAA ride other governments' competitively awarded contracts. It just did so with VITA (Motorola), and staff have recommended the same route for AT&T through Fairfax County Public Schools. Confirm which Dell cooperative or Virginia contracts carry a rider clause and bring one to the Office of Technology. Dell Marketing already holds MWAA contract SC-24-00043.
- Build the Dulles programme pipeline now. Package A ($6.2B) contract award is scheduled for Q4 2026 and Concourse E opens in October 2026. Engage CIO Goutam Kundu's team and the proposed Airport Activation function on standard compute, edge and endpoint builds for new concourses, including the common-use expansion and the CBP computer refresh line.
- Position for the security-technology refresh. Support bidders on the ~$176M electronic security systems re-compete (more than 12,000 endpoints, incumbent through October 2027) with video-storage and compute designs. Pair this with a cyber-resilience conversation as the Office of Technology adds cybersecurity staff.
- Run an endpoint play. Windows 11 reimaging (~$852K in May 2026), the Public Safety Communications Center workstation refresh and the CBP computer refresh in the 2026 capital budget all point to a client refresh. Offer Dell PCs and lifecycle services through the existing reseller vehicles.
Budget & Fiscal
MWAA budgets on a calendar year with two separate enterprise funds. The Aviation Enterprise's 2026 operation and maintenance program is $889.5M, up 7.3% from 2025. That total covers $599.9M in operating expenses and $289.6M in debt service, with 1,909 budgeted positions. Separate capital programs run alongside it: COMIP has $288.6M of 2026 authorized expenditures and the Capital Construction Program (CCP) has $672.4M. The Dulles Corridor Enterprise (the toll road and Silver Line debt) has a $195.9M 2026 operating program funded by about $214M in toll revenue. In August 2026 the board added $15.5B to the Dulles CCP.
- The 2026 budget explicitly funds cybersecurity. It lists 'advance cyber-security measures and awareness' as a priority and adds four Cybersecurity Specialist positions in the Office of Technology.
- The 2026 COMIP lines include technology projects: CCTV upgrades at both airports ($1.2M DCA, $3.0M IAD), $2.0M for common-use expansion at IAD, a Customs & Border Protection computer refresh, a refresh of Public Safety Communications Center workstations, replacement of the Contract Lifecycle Management System, an airport operations data management system, and a $2.0M replacement of the Dulles Toll Road host computer system.
- The Dulles programme is funded mainly by MWAA revenue bonds repaid through airline rates and Authority revenue, not by taxpayers. Package A (the Main Terminal, connector and Concourse A/B, $6.2B) is scheduled for contract award in Q4 2026.
Initiatives & Priorities
The programme has five packages: A (Main Terminal, connector and Concourse A/B, $6.2B), T (people-mover extension and center-spine tunnels, $3.75B), C (Concourse E/F build-out and a south utility plant, $4B), D (Concourse G/H, $3.7B) and B (a regional concourse replacing C/D, $2.26B). Each new building brings its own network, security, common-use, baggage and operations-system fit-out. A new Airport Activation function has been proposed to bring these facilities into service.
Capital ModernizationIn Q2 2026 the Office of Technology placed task orders for Wi-Fi 7 Phase I (Cisco) at both airports, new firewalls for the IAD data centers, Nexus 9508 distribution nodes for Tier 2, servers for the 'SecNet' expansion, VMware subscriptions for the SecNet refresh, and Windows 11 endpoint reimaging (about $852K). This is an active infrastructure refresh cycle.
Infrastructure Data Center NetworkIn May 2026 the board approved up to $20M through January 2029 with Motorola Solutions, riding a VITA contract. About $7M is planned for 2026: $5.6M for an ASTRO 25 upgrade and master-site relocation, and $1.4M for 215 APX 8500 mobile radios. A separate AT&T rider, recommended to the board in September 2026, would cover cellular data, IoT and a dedicated public-safety broadband network.
Public Safety RadioThe TSA-mandated access-control, video, CCTV and perimeter-detection systems cover more than 12,000 endpoints at both airports. The contract (incumbent M.C. Dean, expiring October 31, 2027) is to be re-competed under proposed terms of a 3-year base plus options, estimated at $65M for the base term and $176M in total. Video and access-control workloads drive storage and compute demand.
Security Video ProcurementMWAA Labs builds its own operations platforms. Queue Hub uses computer vision, edge AI and IoT sensors for curb-to-gate queue and flow visibility and runs on AWS. The team is now adding agentic AI to GTSense, its ground-transportation system, so it can predict demand and make dispatch decisions before congestion or shortages occur.
AI Edge DataThe Office of Technology is moving end-of-life business systems to SaaS: a new Parking Access and Revenue Control System (about $17M over 10 years, with license-plate recognition and hardware at both airports), a Lease and Revenue Management System to replace the incumbent Amadeus system, and a replacement Contract Lifecycle Management System.
SaaS ModernizationProcurement
MWAA buys under its own Contracting Manual, not a state procurement code. The Sixth Edition was adopted May 20, 2026 and raised the simplified-acquisition and task-order threshold to $350K. The Office of Supply Chain Management posts solicitations on mwaa.com, with documents in the MWAA Contract Lifecycle Management System. For IT, the most common paths are task orders on existing IT contracts and 'rider' use of other governments' contracts. Open RFPs are used mainly for systems such as PARCS.
| Vehicle / gate | What it means for Dell |
|---|---|
| Task orders on standing IT contracts | Q1–Q2 2026 acquisition reports show IT hardware, software and services issued as task orders to integrators and resellers such as Disys Solutions, Iron Bow Technologies and ThunderCat Technology (Wi-Fi 7, data-center firewalls, SecNet servers, VMware, Windows 11 reimaging). |
| Rider / cooperative contracts (Contracting Manual §3.6–3.7) | MWAA can buy on contracts that other governments awarded competitively when its contracting officer finds they are more economical. Recent examples: Motorola through VITA (approved May 2026) and AT&T through Fairfax County Public Schools (recommended September 2026). |
| Existing Dell contract | Dell Marketing LP already holds an Authority contract (SC-24-00043). A $180K order for Azure services overages was placed on it in February 2026, so there is a live Dell contract record. |
| Competitive solicitations (RFP/RFQ/IFB) | Posted on mwaa.com's current and upcoming opportunities pages. Examples: RFP-26-23866 for a cloud-based PARCS (due September 28, 2026) and RFQ-26-26882 for 100G Nexus modules at IAD (issued September 16, 2026). |
| Board approval gate | Contracts over $3M, or less-than-full-and-open awards over $200K, go to the Business Administration Committee and then the full Board. |
Spend Signals
GovSpend · as of Sep 21, 2026Dell vs. competitors (spend, payee)
Brand footprint — all channels (est.)
Higher of two conservative lenses: product-name match · manufacturer tag. Both undercount — treat as floors.
Open bids / RFPs
| Solicitation | Due |
|---|---|
| Hardware for 100GB Circuit Upgrade, IAD Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority | Sep 23, 2026 |
| Parking Access and Revenue Control System (PARCS), DCA & IAD Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority | Sep 28, 2026 |
- MWAA's fiscal year is the calendar year. The window is PO issued 2023-01-01 through 2025-12-31, labelled CY2023–2025.
- GovSpend holds MWAA purchasing under three overlapping records: Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (21078), and two records named for Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (208949) and Washington Dulles International Airport (208955), which GovSpend locates in DC. All three carry the same MWAA PO series (PO-YY-NNNNN), and each holds a different, partial, overlapping subset. For example, the IAD Tier-2 concourse PO appears in all three records, while about 1,200 POs appear only under 208949. Every figure here pools the three records and counts each PO number once, using the largest single-record total for that PO. Because records sometimes hold different line subsets of the same PO, this is a conservative floor. Summing the records would overstate spend by 10–130% depending on the vendor (Dell $29.4M summed vs $18.5M de-duplicated). The MWAA Police (262424) and Fire & Rescue (287847) records in Virginia carry no POs; the police record duplicates some MWAA solicitations.
- Dell as payee ($18.5M) is mostly Dell product: PowerEdge and MX servers, PowerScale/Isilon A3000/A300 and PowerStore storage, Data Domain, and Latitude, OptiPlex and Dell Pro endpoints. Microsoft licensing resold by Dell is $618,777, about 3.3% of the payee figure: three "MICROSOFT SERVICES" lines on PO-25-14835, issued 2025-12-12, counted once after de-duplication. No Azure lines, and nothing referencing SC-24-00043, appear under Dell in GovSpend, because the PO description and contract-number fields are blank for these records. The payee figure also includes APC UPS units that Dell resold.
- dellFootprint and the Dell brand figure come from one product-name filter (join any, non-exact so that lines recorded as "Base;PowerEdge R670 Server" match) with a single de-duplicated sum. This replaces an exact-match run that returned $5.08M. Sampling all 9 matched lines of $250K or more and the top 60 descriptions found only Dell hardware and bundled Dell lines: PowerEdge R670/R660/R760/MX750c, PowerStore 3200T/500T, Isilon/PowerScale A3000, Latitude, OptiPlex, Dell Pro, Precision, MX fabric switches, and a $192K "Thank You for choosing Dell" bundle line on the R670 PO. The match contains no Microsoft or Azure lines. About $11.3K of matches from non-IT vendors (Grainger, Imperial Supplies, Oshkosh Aerotech, TSRC, ODP, NITV) are excluded as "precision"/"latitude" false positives. The figure is still a floor. About $7.9M of Dell-paid lines carry no product name that the filter can match: "Base;A3000 - L3…" storage nodes, Data Domain DD9400, Connectrix, APC UPS and perpetual software.
- Cisco's text figure includes Cisco Advanced/Professional Services delivered through DISYS Solutions (~$5M), a Cisco Security EA, and DNA/Webex licensing through Iron Bow, Thundercat and Networking For Future. Apple excludes a third-party iPad wall mount and false positives from uniform and parts suppliers. HPE ($3.5K, one KVM console) and Lenovo ($0) are negligible and omitted. HP is not measured: bare "hp" collides with horsepower, and MWAA records carry no manufacturer tag.
- GovSpend's category, manufacturer and UNSPSC fields are empty for MWAA POs, so the categories panel is omitted. DISYS Solutions (IT staffing and Cisco services, ~$7–8M) is left out of vendorSpend as an IT-services firm, not a reseller.
- The last ~3 quarters of the window (2025) lag in GovSpend ingestion, so don't read trends from them.
- Contracts: the only MWAA contract records ending on or after 2026-10-05 are two fire-suppression testing awards, so expiringContracts is omitted. Bids: 2 IT-relevant solicitations due on or after 2026-09-21 (IAD 100GB circuit hardware and the DCA/IAD parking access and revenue control system). Duplicate postings under the MWAA Police record are dropped.
Power Structure
| Decision-maker | Why they matter |
|---|---|
| John E. (Jack) Potter President and Chief Executive Officer | Long-serving CEO, still in the post at the September 16, 2026 board meeting. He is the public face of the Dulles transformation and of the DCA post-collision safety work. |
| Goutam Kundu EVP and Chief Information and Digital Strategy Officer | Heads the Office of Technology and Digital Strategy, including cybersecurity, digital transformation, application development, MWAA Labs, and technology operations (data centers, networks, radio). He is the primary technology buying-center relationship. |
| Thomas R. Beatty EVP and Chief Operations Officer | Runs both airports, public safety and engineering. He owns operational readiness for Concourse E and the ground-transportation technology (the TNC dashboard and license-plate recognition). |
| Chryssa Westerlund EVP and Chief Revenue Officer | Reports to the board on revenue, including non-airline income such as parking and concessions. Likely business-side stakeholder for the PARCS and lease/revenue system replacements. |
| Mark Uncapher Chair, Board of Directors (2026) | Maryland appointee elected chair for 2026. Alex Vogel, a Virginia appointee, is vice chair. The board approves contracts over $3M. |
| Trent Morse Director (federal appointee) | Presidential appointee who joined in January 2026 and was formerly a deputy assistant to President Trump. He is a signal of heavy federal interest in the Dulles plan. |
News & Signals
Sources
- MWAA — Board of Directors
- MWAA — MWAA Management
- Aviation Pros — Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority Board Elects 2026 Officers
- MWAA — Recommended 2026 Budget, Report to the Finance Committee (November 2025)
- ARLnow — Airport leaders budget for a modest rebound in Reagan National travelers next year
- MWAA — Airports Authority Board Approves Budget for Dulles Transformation
- MWAA — Recommendation to Amend the Aviation Enterprise Fund CCP Budget to Add 'Revitalizing Washington Dulles International Airport' (August 2026)
- MWAA — Minutes of the August 19, 2026 Special Meeting of the Board of Directors
- PR Newswire — America's Newest Capital Gateway Unveiled: More Than $20 Billion Transformation at Washington Dulles International Airport
- UPI — Board approves $15.5 billion budget for Trump's Dulles Airport plans
- MWAA — Amendment to the Statement of Functions (September 2026 board package)
- CIO.com — Custom AI models help MWAA deliver better airport experiences
- Future Travel Experience — Agentic AI: CVG, MUC, Publicis Sapient, ADR, MWAA and Cognizant on predictive operations (August 2026)
- MWAA — Contract Award Recommendation for Public Safety Communications Products and Services (May 2026)
- MWAA — Contract Award Recommendation for Wireless Cellular Data Services and Equipment Utility Services (September 2026)
- MWAA — Pre-Solicitation Terms for Electronic Security Systems Maintenance and Upgrades, DCA and IAD (September 2026)
- MWAA — Quarterly Acquisition Report for Quarter Ended June 30, 2026
- MWAA — Quarterly Acquisition Report for Quarter Ended March 31, 2026
- MWAA — Recommendation to Adopt the Sixth Edition of the Contracting Manual (May 2026)
- MWAA — Current Contracting Opportunities
- MWAA — Upcoming Contracting Opportunities
- MWAA — Pre-Solicitation Terms for a Parking Access and Revenue Control System (May 2026)
- MWAA — Pre-Solicitation Terms for a Lease and Revenue Management System (May 2026)
- MWAA — Recommendation to Award a Sole Source Contract for a Registered Traveler Program at the Airports (May 2026)
- MWAA — Minutes of the January 21, 2026 Board of Directors Meeting
- MWAA — Minutes of the March 18, 2026 Board of Directors Meeting
- MWAA — Minutes of the July 15, 2026 Board of Directors Meeting
- NTSB — Statement from Chairwoman Homendy on open recommendations from the January 2025 midair collision near Reagan National
- FFXnow — MWAA now expecting October opening for Dulles Airport's Concourse E
- MWAA — Minutes of the May 20, 2026 Board of Directors Meeting